On April 14, 2014, the abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok shocked the world and ignited a global outcry, #BRINGBACKOURGIRLS. Eleven years later, in 2024, under a new administration and a new slogan of “renewed hope,” we find ourselves confronting an even deeper darkness.

In a world advancing with improved technology including enhanced security infrastructure, refined human-development indices, and a country blessed with a growing population of young minds, Nigeria appears locked into retrogression, a final departure into the abyss of darkness. The path that ought to shine brighter with each passing year grows dimmer. Instead of progress, we keep stepping backward into familiar shadows.

Nearly 400 precious children were taken across Niger and Kebbi. Government reports claim “rescue.” Parents and community members insist the children escaped. Their argument is difficult to fault: how does a “rescue” occur without a single arrest, without confrontation, without consequence? Affected children reappear; perpetrators evaporate. It is a grim déjà vu.

These failures have become global discourse. Some argue that foreign powers have strategic interests in Nigeria. Whether or not those interests exist, one truth remains: no external force thrives without internal collapse. Neocolonialism, if that is the name we choose feeds on leadership weakened by greed, insecurity, and the inability to chart a sovereign path rooted in the welfare and protection of citizens.

Across every theory of the social contract, the primary purpose of government is settled: the security and welfare of the people. Once this collapses, the very idea of nationhood collapses with it.

Nelson Mandela taught that the soul of a nation is revealed in how it treats its children. By that measure, our national soul is wounded.

The question before us is stark: Are we prepared to repeat the cycle of 2014, again and again? If we keep “rescuing” children without rebuilding the nation, then in 11 years or fewer we will stand here once more, mourning, searching, hashtagging, demanding.

It is the committed and demonstrated desire and design of the pollical class and their sympathizers to drag us 11 years backward, but we must refuse to return to the ruins with them. We have done #BringBackOurGirls. Now we must turn the table and face the future. We must be done with the backward march. We must move forward with a campaign anchored on one non-negotiable demand: the security and welfare of our precious children and the entire populace.

This is why the call must now shift. #BringBackNigeria.

BringBackOurGirls was a cry for specific children in a specific tragedy.

BringBackNigeria must be the cry for structural rebirth.

Some may argue that Nigeria, as presently constituted, was never a true nation. That debate is legitimate. But #BringBackNigeria is not an invitation to return to a romanticized past that never existed. It is a demand to bring Nigeria into the true meaning of nationhood in 2025, a century where safety, dignity, and human development are non-negotiable.

If we continue to recover children without rebuilding the nation, we will remain trapped in an endless loop of trauma and public outrage. The time has come for a broader, deeper movement:

BringBackNigeria. #BringBackAfrica

Perhaps we have never fully birthed the nation we deserve. But we must birth it now.

Do have an INSPIRED rest of the day with the family