Opinion

When Emotion Becomes Policy: Nigeria’s Struggle With Insecurity and Public Outrage

Published

4 months ago

May 20, 2026

Mariam Balogun

Kayode Adebiyi insecurity emotion policy warning argues Nigeria cannot defeat insecurity through outrage alone, urging systemic reforms instead

Every time another gruesome killing, mass kidnapping, or terrorist attack occurs in Nigeria, a familiar cycle begins.

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The videos emerge.

The tears flow.

Social media erupts.

The outrage becomes volcanic.

The President is insulted, governors are abused, politicians are cursed and blame travels in every imaginable direction. Within hours, everyone becomes a security expert, a political analyst, and a judge.

Then, after days of emotional exhaustion, another tragedy occurs elsewhere and the cycle begins again.

The uncomfortable truth Nigerians often do not like to hear is this: emotional reaction is not security policy.

No nation has ever shouted its way out of insecurity.

This is not to suggest that people should become emotionless in the face of barbarity, nor is it an argument against grief, anger, or public outrage.

Human beings are emotional creatures, and any society that ceases to mourn innocent victims has already begun to lose its humanity.

We must grieve, we must condemn evil, and we must demand accountability from leaders.

However, we must also confront an inconvenient reality: outrage by itself solves nothing.

If insulting presidents were a security strategy, Nigeria should have become one of the safest countries in Africa by now.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan was criticised relentlessly during the height of insurgency.

He was mocked, ridiculed, and labelled weak, clueless, and incapable of protecting the nation.

Then came Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general whom many Nigerians believed possessed the military credentials necessary to crush insecurity decisively.

Yet when kidnappings, terrorism, and banditry continued under his administration, he too became the subject of public anger and relentless criticism. Today, that frustration has shifted toward Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The names change, the faces change, but the insecurity remains stubbornly persistent.

The pattern never changes. One government leaves office under a cloud of outrage, another comes in under fresh hope, and eventually the same insecurity problems persist, leading citizens to once again search for a political figure to hold singularly responsible.

At what point do we stop and ask ourselves a more difficult question: what if the problem is larger than personalities? What if insecurity in Nigeria is fundamentally systemic?

This is where emotion often clouds national reasoning.

Many Nigerians appear to believe that if enough citizens scream loudly enough at the President online, somehow insecurity will disappear.

It is almost as though we subconsciously imagine that public insults will suddenly make a president omnipresent, invisible, and capable of personally confronting terrorists in forests, kidnappers on highways, or violent criminal networks spread across vast territories.

While frustration with leadership failures is understandable, this way of thinking oversimplifies an extraordinarily complex crisis.

The reality is that Nigeria’s insecurity challenge is structural. It is rooted in weak institutions, poor intelligence gathering, inadequate policing, porous borders, corruption, outdated security frameworks, insufficient technology, judicial inefficiencies, unemployment, poverty, and decades of accumulated governance failures.

These are deeply embedded problems that cannot be solved merely through emotional reactions or public condemnation. You cannot cure a structural disease with emotional medicine.

The United States offers an uncomfortable but useful comparison.

Whenever there is a school shooting in America, particularly one involving children, the country erupts emotionally.

Parents cry before television cameras, citizens protest, communities grieve, politicians are attacked verbally, and presidents are heavily criticised. Social media becomes flooded with outrage and demands for justice.

Yet despite the emotional intensity that follows every tragedy, the shootings continue. Why? Because America’s gun violence crisis extends beyond emotion into the realm of systemic dysfunction.

Many Americans argue that stricter gun laws could significantly reduce mass shootings, yet meaningful reform continues to stall because of constitutional protections, political lobbying, partisan division, and legislative resistance.

In other words, America’s problem is not a shortage of outrage. Americans are outraged after nearly every school massacre. Their problem is systemic paralysis, where institutions struggle or refuse to enact the structural reforms many believe are necessary.

Nigeria suffers from something remarkably similar. We have become experts in emotional reaction but lag behind in institutional reform.

Following every kidnapping or massacre, Nigerians understandably ask: Where was the President? Where was the Governor? These are fair questions because leadership matters, and governments deserve scrutiny.

Security failures should never become normalised, and those entrusted with power must be held accountable for protecting lives and property. Yet accountability is different from emotional scapegoating.

No governor can physically police every village in a state. No president can personally secure every forest, highway, or remote community across a country as large and complex as Nigeria.

Security succeeds when institutions function effectively. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s institutional framework remains deeply inadequate for the scale and sophistication of the threats confronting the nation.

One of the biggest elephants in the room remains the question of state policing.

Nigeria continues to operate one of the most centralised policing systems in the world despite enormous geographical, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural complexities.

A police command operating from Abuja cannot reasonably understand every local criminal network in remote communities better than people who actually live there.

Bandits understand the terrain. Kidnappers know the escape routes.

Terrorists exploit intelligence gaps and local vulnerabilities.

Yet local authorities often lack sufficient operational autonomy to respond swiftly and effectively.

This does not mean state policing should be introduced recklessly or without safeguards.

Legitimate concerns exist regarding potential abuse by governors, political intimidation, and weaponisation against opposition voices.

These concerns deserve serious constitutional safeguards. However, refusing to seriously reconsider Nigeria’s security architecture while expecting different results amounts to national self-deception.

We cannot continue doing the same thing in the same way and expect a fundamentally different outcome. That is not governance. That is wishful thinking.

The recent gruesome murder of a teacher in Ogbomoso, accompanied by disturbing footage deliberately circulated by terrorists, painfully illustrates another dangerous dimension of modern insecurity: psychology.

Terror groups understand something many ordinary citizens do not fully appreciate, namely that violence alone is not their only weapon. Emotion is.

The deliberate release of graphic videos is often strategic, intended not merely to document violence but to spread fear, provoke anger, deepen public distrust in government, and emotionally destabilise society.

Terrorism thrives not only on bloodshed but also on psychological victory.

This is why the issue is not whether Nigerians should show emotions.

Of course we should.

The murder of innocent people should hurt us.

Communities should mourn.

Parents should cry.

Citizens should demand accountability from leaders.

Anyone unmoved by such brutality risks becoming dangerously detached from human suffering.

However, what must change is our tendency to stop at emotional reaction without advancing the deeper conversation about systemic solutions.

The real question should no longer simply be: Who do we blame? A more important question is: What systems must change? How do we improve intelligence gathering?

How do we modernise surveillance and strengthen local intelligence networks? How do we reform policing to become more community based and locally responsive?

How do we secure vulnerable rural communities?

How do we reform constitutional frameworks to address modern security threats more effectively?

Unless these questions become central to national discourse, Nigeria risks remaining trapped in a painful and repetitive cycle: attack, outrage, blame, temporary outrage fatigue, and repetition.

A nation cannot emotionally react itself into security.

At some point, outrage must mature into institutional reform.

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Only then can insecurity begin to retreat, and only then can Nigerians begin to see meaningful progress beyond the endless cycle of grief, anger, and helplessness.

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Opinion

From Lagos to Germany: How Rotary Youth Exchange Transformed Arnold Faranpojo

Published

2 days ago

September 7, 2026

Mariam Balogun

By Ehi Braimah and Victor Ojelabi,

At 16, Arnold Faranpojo had already completed his secondary education, earned impressive examination results and begun charting a path towards an international future.

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But his participation in the Rotary Youth Exchange Programme, facilitated by Rotary International District 9111 during the tenure of then District Governor Henry Akinyele, would take his education beyond the classroom, giving him an experience that would reshape his outlook on life, culture, independence and the world.

Born in Lagos on 28 July 2009, Arnold is the second of three boys in the Faranpojo family. Although his roots are in Ile-Ife, Osun State, he grew up in Lagos, where he completed his secondary education at Nigerian Navy Secondary School, Abeokuta.

He graduated in 2025 with his WAEC and NECO certificates and recorded an impressive 319 in the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board examination the same year.

Rather than immediately proceeding into university, however, Arnold embarked on an 11-month Rotary Youth Exchange experience in Germany, an opportunity he describes as one of the most memorable chapters of his young life.

A Family’s Leap of Faith

News of Arnold’s selection was met with excitement in the Faranpojo household, although it also came with understandable concerns.

For his parents, sending their son away for almost a year was a major decision. For his two brothers, the prospect of having the middle child away from home was initially unsettling.

“Knowing that the middle man of the three boys was going to be away for a year was at first unsettling with uncertainties,” the family recalled. “But with some clarification and explanation, the news was later greeted with faith and hopes for better things.”

For Arnold himself, the selection brought a mixture of gratitude, excitement and pride.

“It was a very exciting and memorable moment for me,” he said. “I felt extremely grateful, excited and proud because it was an opportunity to experience a completely different country and culture.”

His parents shared his excitement and were proud of the opportunity, even as they recognised that their son was about to take a significant step towards independence.

Arnold is the son of Rev. Alexander Faranpojo mni, a business consultant, clergyman and member of the National Institute.

He is the founding pastor of Virtues Christian Centre in Lagos and London and president of Virtues Life Foundation, an organisation focused on humanities, societies and governance.

His mother, Pastor Mrs Funmilola Faranpojo, is also a business consultant with interests in educational advancement and international agency services.

She serves alongside her husband in ministry and has close to two decades of experience spanning banking and human capital development. She holds a postgraduate qualification in Human Resources from the University of Winnipeg.

Together, they have supported Arnold and his brothers while encouraging their educational and personal development.

Eleven Months That Changed Everything

Arnold spent approximately 11 months in Germany, living and studying in Wuppertal and attending Wilhelm Dörpfeld Gymnasium.

The experience exposed him to an education system different from the one he had known in Nigeria, while also placing him in an environment where communication, adaptation and independence became part of everyday life.

“Everything was different — the language, culture, school system, food and daily lifestyle,” Arnold recalled of his initial experience.

The early days were challenging. Adjusting to a new country, learning to communicate in another language and understanding unfamiliar social and educational systems required patience.

But gradually, the unfamiliar became familiar.

Arnold improved his German language skills, became more comfortable communicating with people and learnt to navigate daily life with increasing independence.

Beyond Wuppertal, the exchange opened the door to travel and cultural discovery. He visited Düsseldorf, Cologne, Dortmund, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich, as well as Paris in France.

Each journey offered a different perspective, allowing him to experience new cities, cultures and ways of life.

Yet, for Arnold, the exchange was about much more than travelling.

He spent considerable time at school, participated in Rotary activities, built friendships with Germans and young people from other countries and learned how to interact with individuals from different backgrounds.

“Overall, the exchange helped me become more independent, adaptable, confident and open-minded,” he said.

More Than a Language

One of the most significant outcomes of Arnold’s exchange year was the development of his confidence.

Living away from his family required him to take greater responsibility for himself. Communicating in a foreign language pushed him outside his comfort zone, while interacting with people from different cultures broadened his understanding of the world.

By the end of the programme, Germany no longer felt like the completely unfamiliar environment he encountered when he first arrived.

“I had developed a strong appreciation for the country and its culture,” he said.

The experience also gave him something that cannot easily be measured by academic certificates: an international perspective.

For Arnold, learning German became part of a much larger lesson about communication, tolerance and adaptability.

“My exchange year taught me much more than just a new language,” he said. “It taught me how to adapt, communicate with different people, become independent, and appreciate different cultures.”

The strongest placement is immediately after the “More Than a Language” section and before “Building Towards the Future”. It creates a natural bridge from Arnold’s return to Nigeria into what comes next.

A Special Homecoming

Arnold’s return from Germany brought another memorable Rotary moment.

On 18 August 2026, he had the rare privilege of joining Rotary International President Olayinka Hakeem Babalola and other Rotary leaders at a special reception in Lagos held in Babalola’s honour.

The reception, jointly organised by Rotary International Districts 9111 and 9112 under District Governors Bukola Bakare and Layi Abidoye respectively, brought together Rotarians and other guests to celebrate Babalola’s historic leadership of the global service organisation.

Arnold did not attend the reception alone. His parents, Rev. Alexander Faranpojo mni and Pastor Mrs Funmilola Faranpojo, accompanied him, giving the family an opportunity to share another significant Rotary experience together following his return from Germany.

Babalola was full of praise for Arnold and the journey he had undertaken through the Rotary Youth Exchange Programme.

He noted that about 7,000 young people around the world are offered the opportunity to participate in Rotary Youth Exchange each year, placing Arnold’s experience within a global programme that enables young people to live in another country, experience different cultures and develop a broader understanding of the world.

For Arnold, meeting the Rotary International President so soon after returning from an 11-month exchange provided a fitting connection between the opportunity Rotary had given him abroad and the organisation’s leadership at home.

Babalola’s emergence as the second Nigerian and second African to serve as President of Rotary International also carried particular significance.

For a young Nigerian whose worldview had been broadened through a Rotary programme, his leadership offered another powerful example of how service, opportunity and exposure can transcend geographical boundaries.

Building Towards the Future

With his exchange year behind him, Arnold is now focused on the next stage of his journey.

He is continuing to improve his German language skills as he prepares for university, with plans to study Business Informatics (Wirtschaftsinformatik) in Germany.

The field sits at the intersection of business and technology, an area that aligns with Arnold’s growing interests and his ambitions for the future.

But his aspirations extend beyond technology and business.

He hopes to combine his interests in business, technology and fashion to create something that contributes positively to humanity.

His Rotary experience, he believes, will remain an important foundation as he pursues these ambitions.

Looking back on the opportunity, Arnold is clear about what the experience has given him: greater confidence, independence, adaptability and a broader understanding of the world.

It has also taught him not to be afraid of unfamiliar territory.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity and believe the experience will continue to influence my education, career, and personal development,” he said.