Good morning,
Dawn broke over the commercial outskirts of Aba, and NAPTIP operatives breached a compound behind high walls and barbed wire. Inside were locked rooms. Dozens of young pregnant women, some of them teenagers, some malnourished, some already in labour. The syndicate paid them ₦150,000 to ₦300,000 on delivery and resold the babies for millions. It survives because Nigeria’s birth registration is porous, adoption laws vary by state, and millions of children have no paper trail at all. A child without a record can be moved, renamed and sold. In Anambra, the state sealed the Arrow of God Children’s Home in Oyi and rescued eight children from conditions the commissioner called unhygienic and below standard. A retired lieutenant-colonel owned the home. The children are now in state care, and nobody has said what happens next. One state rescues eight children while the black market processes hundreds. That is not a child protection system. That is a lottery.
In Mbaise, a groom walked away from his own wedding. The bride’s uncle, standing in for her late parents, demanded ₦1.2 million, plus livestock, drinks, yams and the rest of the list. The groom left. Videos showed him walking down a muddy rural road while the wedding he had come to hold dissolved behind him. Bride price was once kola nut and palm wine. Now it is a negotiation with a price ceiling nobody enforces, and a bride paid the price for a custom that stopped being symbolic long before she was born. Meanwhile, Ebonyi and Enugu are building ranches with World Bank support: 292 hectares at Izziangbo, 11,000 hectares at Owo, automated abattoirs and climate-smart pasture. Anambra says it has no ranch and no plans for one. Two states are trying to end a conflict. One is describing harmony that the next dry season will test.
The campaign season has already drawn blood. In Katsina, youths attacked an APC convoy travelling to the Funtua flag-off along the Yashi-Funtua road in Malumfashi. One person was feared dead. A campaign vehicle was set ablaze. Police arrested 14 suspects. The APC national chairman, Nentawe Yilwatda, used the same week to warn INEC against shifting the 2027 timetable, claiming 13 million members, while INEC told an ECOWAS mission that it favours no party and has 103 million registered voters. Both statements are a negotiation dressed as reassurance. And in Borno, troops of Operation Hadin Kai killed four senior ISWAP members, including two Arab fighters, after a major attack on their positions. The military wins battles. The country still cannot guarantee a rally, a wedding or a child’s birth certificate.
The pulpits are also being contested. In Lagos, the youth wings of CAN and NACOMYO signed an inter-religious peace accord, urging young Nigerians to reject political violence in 2027. In Jalingo, worshippers walked out of a Juma’at mosque after the Chief Imam urged the congregation to support President Tinubu’s re-election and insisted the government is not oppressive. One worshipper shouted, “That’s a lie,” and others followed him out. Security escorted the imam away. A pulpit that tells hungry people their hunger is imaginary will lose its congregation, and it should.
A baby sold for millions. A bride left on a muddy road. A ranch built and a ranch refused. A convoy attacked and a timetable defended. A peace pact signed and a sermon rejected. These are not separate stories. They are the same story: a country negotiating its own survival in courtrooms, markets, forests, and pews, while the institutions that should hold the line keep arriving late.
Warmly,
Lolade