By Adisa Bashir
Like many Nigerians, I was deeply saddened by the recent tragedy involving teachers in Oyo State. No teacher should leave home to educate children and never return. No family should receive such heartbreaking news. Every Nigerian of good conscience should condemn such acts and demand justice.
Yet as the reactions poured in, a troubling question lingered in my mind.
Where was this level of outrage all these years?
Where was this collective anger when schools in Borno came under repeated attack? Where were the nationwide demonstrations when hundreds of schoolchildren were abducted from their classrooms? Where was the sustained public pressure when parents in Chibok, Dapchi, Kankara, Jangebe, Kuriga and countless other communities spent agonizing days and nights wondering whether they would ever see their children again?
These questions are not meant to diminish the pain of Oyo. Grief cannot be measured by geography. A murdered teacher in Oyo is no less a tragedy than a murdered teacher anywhere else in Nigeria.
The point is simple: every victim deserves the same compassion.
For more than a decade, insecurity has devastated Nigeria’s education sector. Teachers have been killed. Students have been kidnapped. Schools have been forced to shut their doors. Communities have watched fear replace hope as classrooms became targets and education became a risk.
Many teachers in parts of Northern Nigeria went to work every day knowing they could be attacked. Many parents kept their children at home because they feared school might become the last place they would ever be seen alive.
Yet during those years, the national response often seemed muted. The outrage was sporadic. The attention was fleeting.
That is what many Nigerians find difficult to understand.
A teacher’s life in Maiduguri is worth exactly the same as a teacher’s life in Ibadan.
A child in Borno deserves the same concern as a child in Oyo.
A grieving parent in Zamfara sheds the same tears as a grieving parent in the South-West.
There should never be a hierarchy of victims.
Compassion should not depend on location, ethnicity, religion, or political relevance. Tragedy does not discriminate, and neither should our empathy.
The attack in Oyo deserves condemnation. So did every attack that came before it.
What Nigerians are asking for is consistency.
If we are prepared to march when teachers are attacked, then we should march whenever teachers are attacked. If we are prepared to speak out when children are kidnapped, then our voices should be heard whether the incident occurs in Oyo, Maiduguri, Sokoto, Enugu, Kaduna, Bayelsa, or anywhere else in the country.
The lives of Nigerian children should never become a regional issue.
The safety of Nigerian teachers should never become a selective cause.
Perhaps the deepest wound is not the violence itself but the feeling of being forgotten. Silence can send a dangerous message. It can leave victims believing that their suffering does not matter. It can leave entire communities feeling abandoned by the nation they belong to.
No Nigerian family should ever be left with that feeling.
The Nigeria Union of Teachers occupies a unique position in our national life. It represents men and women who dedicate themselves to shaping future generations. Because of that responsibility, many Nigerians expect the union to stand visibly and consistently with every teacher and every student affected by insecurity, regardless of where the tragedy occurs.
This is not a moment for selective outrage.
It is a moment for national solidarity.
A threat to one teacher should concern all teachers. An attack on one school should concern the entire country. The life of every Nigerian child carries equal value and deserves equal protection.
The blood shed in Oyo is precious.
The blood shed in Maiduguri is precious too.
The tears of one mother should never command more sympathy than the tears of another.
If we truly want to honour the victims, then our compassion must be consistent. Our advocacy must be consistent. Our demands for security must be consistent.
Because the real issue is bigger than Oyo.
The real issue is that for far too long, Nigerian teachers and schoolchildren have borne the burden of insecurity. They have paid with their safety, their futures, and in far too many cases, their lives.
Every one of them deserves a voice.
Not only when it is convenient.
Not only when it attracts attention.
But always.
That is what justice requires.
That is what humanity requires.
Adisa is a teacher
— Newspot Nigeria
