in New York, Nigerian delegates staged a well-rehearsed walkout from the United Nations General Assembly as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium.
Dozens of delegates left the hall in protest of Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon. Netanyahu, unfazed, called them “moral cowards” and continued his speech.
It was a powerful scene for international cameras. But for any Nigerian watching at home, it was a scene of profound irresponsibility and hypocrisy.
Our government is very good at performing morality abroad, while abdicating its primary duty at home.
What moral standing do we have to walk out on terrorism?
Israel says it is fighting terrorism – Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran. You may agree or disagree with its methods. But its government leaves no doubt that it will defend its citizens at all costs. Netanyahu told the UN that attacking Iran “was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make” because the security of his people was non-negotiable.
What is Nigeria’s doctrine on terrorism?
For over 15 years, Boko Haram, ISWAP, bandits, and kidnappers have turned the North-East, North-West, and North-Central into killing fields. Thousands of our citizens have been slaughtered, our schoolgirls abducted, our farmers displaced, our soldiers ambushed. Yet the response of the Nigerian government has been press releases, committees, and condolence messages.
We walk out against alleged genocide in Gaza, but we have normalized genocide in Benue, in Plateau, in Southern Kaduna, in Zamfara, in Borno. A government that cannot protect its own people has no business performing outrage on the world stage.
The Lackadaisical War
1. No Clear Ideology: Israel has defined its enemy. Nigeria still calls terrorists “bandits,” “gunmen,” and “unknown gunmen,” as if naming them correctly would be too offensive.
2. No Accountability: When terrorists kill 40 citizens in a village, no security chief loses his job. When a school is attacked, no minister resigns. Failure is rewarded with tenure extension.
3. No Justice: Terror suspects are “repented” and reintegrated with stipends, while their victims rot in IDP camps without justice or compensation. Which serious nation fights terrorism this way?
Our delegates can afford to fly Business Class to New York to walk out on Israel, but our soldiers in the trenches cannot afford basic drones, night-vision goggles, and timely air support.
The Truth
You cannot fight foreign injustice while you pamper domestic terror.
That UN walkout was not foreign policy. It was a distraction. A government that is failing to secure lives and property at home is trying to buy cheap moral credit abroad.
If our government had the same energy it used to walk out on Netanyahu to walk into Sambisa Forest, into the bandit camps of Zamfara, into the killer herdsmen hideouts in Benue, Nigeria would be safer today.
Charity begins at home. Security begins at home. Leadership begins at home.
Until we defeat the terrorists in Nigeria, we have no moral right to lecture any nation on how it defeats its own.
I am H. E. Mejeh Esq.
Lawyer with Conscience, Nurtured by Truth.
