Every movement begins with a conversation. Every conversation begins with clarity. Without clarity, conversation becomes noise, an empty blowout of words, and movement becomes impossible.

That is why I take seriously Dele Farotimii’s recurring insistence, calling us to clarity that Nigeria is neither a “zoo” nor a “jungle.” The popular metaphors may sound clever, but they are not accurate, and worse, they dilute the crisis.

A zoo is not lawless. A zoo is organized by design: boundaries, routines, containment, welfare protocols, and oversight. You do not find a lion in the giraffe’s enclosure. You do not find the keepers missing for ten hours when danger erupts. A zoo functions precisely because it must be structured; without structure, it collapses.

And a jungle is not merely chaos. The wild runs on an ecosystem governed by nature’s order. Life in the wild is sustained by a coherence so deep that animals do not require an emergency number to survive normal hazards, unless humans disrupt that ecosystem.

So no: Nigeria is not a zoo. Nigeria is not a jungle. Both analogies fail to capture our peculiar tragedy: we live in a society where disorder is not an accident but a system; where preventable gaps repeatedly become fatal outcomes; where citizens die not merely from misfortune, but from predictable institutional failure.

Now, let us turn to Scripture for the area of our polity I want to explore today: the worth of the life of a Nigerian. I take my text from Psalm 91:16:

When Scripture says, “With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation” (Psalm 91:16), a question arises: is the fulfilment of this promise, at a population level connected to the quality of a society’s social and political system, including social protection?

If not, how do we explain the pattern that nations with stronger, more functional systems consistently record higher life expectancy, while nations with weaker systems record lower life expectancy?

Consider the contrast. In Norway, life expectancy at birth was reported at 83.3 years in 2024. In Sweden, it reached 84.1 years in 2024. Yet in Nigeria, life expectancy at birth was about 54.46 years in 2023. Even across Sub-Saharan Africa, the 2023 estimate was about 62.1 years, still far below the Scandinavian benchmarks.

I therefore make bold to suggest that, for the majority, the promise of “long life” is not merely a private spiritual declaration; it is also deeply connected to the structures God expects human societies to build systems that preserve life through security, healthcare access, emergency response, economic stability, and effective social protection. This is without prejudice to exceptions, and exceptions will always exist, but we do not build truth from exceptions.

Now, let us consider two recent cases that expose how we may be living outside God’s order and expectations for humanity.

Two stories from early 2026 help clarify the point.

On January 31, 2026, Abuja-based singer Ifunanya “Nanyah” Nwangene, 26, reportedly died following a snakebite. Public reporting and public conversation around the incident raised troubling questions about emergency readiness, particularly about timely access to effective antivenom-based care and the reliability of the response chain. Different reports emphasize different details, but the indictment is consistent: in a functioning society, a medical emergency should not become a death sentence because essential care is absent, delayed, or inaccessible.

In another story, Nigerian entrepreneur and digital creator Lucky Elohor, 29, reportedly died in Kwara State after a road accident. Public outrage followed claims that critical diagnostic infrastructure, especially MRI availability, was absent or not functional in the state at the time, and that delays worsened the outcome. Again, even where social media can sometimes amplify or simplify facts, the moral question remains legitimate: how does a state capital operate without critical diagnostic capacity, or without a reliable pathway to it that does not convert hours into graves?

And then, the other day, it was Nkanu Nnamdi, one of the twin sons of renowned author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who reportedly died in Lagos on January 6, 2026, at 21 months old, after a brief illness, an incident that has since drawn public allegations and debate about standards of care and medical accountability. For many, it is yet another reminder that the decay has come full circle: even where “the best care” is presumed to be available, life can still be lost to systemic failure and institutional negligence.

These are not abstract examples. They are human lives, promising lives cut short in circumstances that reflect something deeper than personal tragedy. They show what happens when a society normalizes dysfunction.

In emergency medicine, time is not neutral. Time is an active agent. In cases involving severe envenomation, internal bleeding, neurological injury, stroke, or trauma, minutes and hours can mark the boundary between recovery and death. When critical care is hours away, distance becomes judgment and delay becomes execution.

But our national tragedy is not only the absence of infrastructure. It is the emotional adaptation of citizens to collapse. We laugh. We tweet. We make jokes. We scroll. We move on, until it is our sister, our son, our spouse, our colleague, our own blood on the floor.

And that is how a nation fails: not only when systems break, but when people begin to treat the unacceptable as normal.

This is why the “zoo” and “jungle” metaphors are more dangerous than they appear. They reduce an institutional collapse into a caricature. They give us something clever to say instead of something courageous to do.

Because what we are facing is not merely insecurity, not merely corruption, not merely poverty. It is a governance failure so profound that it shows up in the simplest places: emergency response, basic hospital readiness, essential supplies, diagnostic capacity, and consequences for negligence.

Governments will mourn. Officials will visit. Statements will be issued. Committees may be formed. But when condolences replace structural correction, grief becomes performance. It does not shorten the next delay. It does not stock the next hospital. It does not equip the emergency chain. It does not protect the next citizen.

So where do we go from here?

First, we return to clarity, the kind of clarity Dele Farotimi calls for. Clarity that we are not merely “going through hard times,” but living under a public order that has stopped protecting life as a priority. Clarity that citizens are not safe. Clarity that basic systems are missing, broken, or captured.

Second, we must organize rather than merely agonize. Power belongs to the people, but only if the people refuse normalization; only if citizens stop treating preventable deaths as trending topics and start treating them as indictments.

Third, we demand minimum standards: reliable emergency numbers and response protocols; essential drug and supply chains; functional tertiary facilities; diagnostic and trauma capacity; transparency in procurement; and consequences for negligence real consequences, not sympathy and silence.

Nigeria does not need better metaphors. Nigeria needs a better order.

A society can survive many insults, but it cannot survive the routine cheapening of life. When citizens die because help came too late, because essentials were unavailable, because the system was absent, then the nation is not merely struggling; it is failing its most fundamental duty.

And that is the clearest measure of governance: not speeches, not slogans, not ribbon-cutting, not “ultramodern” buildings without functional equipment, but whether an ordinary citizen can face an emergency and reasonably expect to live.

Until we can answer that honestly, let us stop calling Nigeria a zoo. Let us stop calling it a jungle. Those places have order.

What we are living in is something else, and it is killing us.

Do have an INSPIRED week ahead.