When a government spends more time disputing a crime than stopping it, insecurity is no longer just about guns in the forest; it is about institutions in denial, as seen in the recent Kaduna church abduction.
Development Diaries reports that the identities of the 177 persons kidnapped from ECWA and Cherubim and Seraphim churches at Kurmin Wali community in Kajuru area of Kaduna State on Sunday have been revealed.
After government and security operatives initially denied the incident, a police situation report has confirmed the attack occurred during church services.
What played out in Kurmin Wali exposes a deeper failure in Nigeria’s security architecture, where verification takes precedence over protection and public image is treated as more urgent than human life.
For two days, Kurmin Wali did not exist in official Nigeria, with authorities saying nothing happened. Then the names came, 177 of them. Children, nursing mothers, grandparents, entire families taken in one Sunday morning.
While families searched the forest and counted the missing, the state debated whether the crime itself was real. This is about what happens when denial comes before duty, and silence comes before rescue.
This is what insecurity looks like when protection is weakest, where vulnerability is highest. It is gendered, rural, and classed. It stays invisible until someone forces it into public view.
Community alerts must be treated as credible until proven otherwise. Every mass abduction should trigger an immediate public incident report, not days of silence. Journalists, faith leaders, and civil society groups doing ground checks should be supported, not blocked.
We, as citizens, must demand timelines, not statements. When was the first call received, when did responders move, and who approved public denial? Rural communities and worship spaces must be protected as civilian infrastructure, not remembered only after attacks.
Development Diaries did not wait for official admission to ask questions. Now that the state has admitted the truth, the questions must become harder, because the real danger is a system that denies citizens before it defends them, and a country where truth comes after trauma is not yet safe.
Photo source: Vanguard
