A viral video by criminals on Nigeria’s X space threatened to expand kidnapping to soldiers and politicians. Amid the collective anger at insecurity and bad governance, one comment read: “You go see celebration for the whole country.” Meaning, the nation would celebrate if a governor or powerful politician were abducted.
Frustration with government failure is valid. Celebrating kidnapping is a surrender to chaos. When a society begins to treat abduction as a public holiday, we move from demanding justice to romanticizing criminality. Today it sounds like clap-back politics; tomorrow it becomes national desensitization to real violence—violence that rarely stays in the lanes of those we dislike.
Want accountability? Power it with civic pressure, rediscovered empathy, and reform, not applause for terror. That’s the true red flag.
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