Enough Is Enough: Stop Exploiting Lafia Youths for Political Retaliation
Amb. Suleiman Abubakar Rimi Uku, MAPSA
Veteran Journalist & Public Affairs Analyst
The recent violence in Lafia Local Government Area has once again laid bare a painful truth: political intolerance and the manipulation of young people for narrow, self-serving agendas remain grave threats to our community. The moment has arrived for political elites, stakeholders, and community leaders to declare, without ambiguity, that enough is enough.
Lafia has long been celebrated as a city of peace, unity, and mutual respect. It must not be reduced to a theater for political supremacy battles. The clashes of yesterday, which left several youths injured and hospitalized, are not mere skirmishes. They are a stain on the reputation of an ancient city whose identity has been built on tranquillity and coexistence. As Nelson Mandela warned, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Lafia deserves leadership that is more competent than that.
Political leaders must recognize a fundamental fact: young people are not weapons to be deployed at the slightest provocation. They are the architects of our collective future and deserve investment, protection, and opportunity, not exposure to danger. Many of the youths drawn into these confrontations act out of loyalty, hope, or the promise of patronage from those they admire. Yet when violence erupts, the same patrons vanish. The youths are left to bear scars, legal consequences, and shattered futures alone. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it plainly: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” The same applies to politicians who spend more energy mobilizing youths for conflict than empowering them for productivity.
One question every young person must ask is this: where are the children of the very leaders encouraging these confrontations? Too often, they are enrolled in prestigious universities across Nigeria and abroad, shielded from the chaos their parents incite at home. Meanwhile, ordinary youths are sent to fight battles that yield no diploma, no skill, and no future. As Chinua Achebe observed, “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.” That failure is most visible when leaders protect their own families from risk while exposing other people’s children to it. The bitter irony is that those who injured each other yesterday are not enemies. They are brothers, sisters, neighbors, and classmates. Today, some lie in hospital beds because they were persuaded to sacrifice peace for someone else’s political score-settling. There is no victory in that.
The responsibility for change rests squarely with political elites and stakeholders. Rather than doling out temporary handouts to secure blind loyalty, they must invest in what truly transforms lives: education, vocational training, entrepreneurship, and job creation. Young people need empowerment, not exploitation. The old proverb holds true: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Lafia’s youths deserve fishing rods, not fish.
Political competition is the heartbeat of democracy, but it must never degenerate into bloodshed. Leaders must model maturity, tolerance, and respect for dissent. Youths, in turn, must refuse to be instruments of division. As Kofi Annan said,
“To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for.” Lafia youths must choose the identity of builders, not destroyers.
Yesterday’s events must serve as a wake-up call. If peace, love, unity, and tranquillity are to remain Lafia’s defining traits, every stakeholder must play a part in preserving them. The future of Lafia is larger than the ambition of any single politician.
We must choose dialogue over confrontation, development over division, and peace over violence. Lafia’s name itself should remind us of its meaning.
Peace is not a slogan here; it is an inheritance. Let us protect it with the same urgency we protect our children. Because when the noise fades and the politicians move on, it is Lafia, the city, the community, the youths, who must live with the consequences. Enough is enough.
Amb. Abubakar Lawal Suleiman Rimi Uku, MAPSA, is a Veteran Journalist and Public Affairs Analyst. Email: abubakarlawal6767@gmail.com_
