By Stephanie Shaakaa
America is a country that runs on systems. On Wednesday, September 10, Charlie Kirk a polarizing political activist was shot dead while speaking at a rally in Utah. A single bullet to the carotid ended his life instantly. Within twenty-four hours, the FBI had identified his killer.
22-year-old Tyler Robinson, a straight-A student. He was not shielded by privilege or family ties. He was handed over to the authorities by his own father a sheriff. By September 12, just two days later, the assassin was under arrest.
In America, the system kicks in with machine-like precision. The President of the United States ordered flags lowered worldwide. The Governor of Utah addressed the press seven times in three days twice on Wednesday, twice on Thursday, and thrice on Friday. There is an iron rule, when tragedy strikes, leaders must be visible, decisive, and accountable. Failure to deliver justice is political suicide. In America, accountability is not optional it is the bare minimum.
Now let us come home to Nigeria. Imagine if such a shooting took place here. Would the father of the shooter surrender his son? Or would he quietly shield him, call in connections, and erase evidence? Would our security agencies move with lightning speed, piecing evidence together in hours? Or would we still hear the tired refrain months later.The suspects are unknown gunmen, but investigations are ongoing.
In America, systems are designed to work even when individuals fail. In Nigeria, individuals bend systems until they break. In the U.S., leaders face the people immediately. In Nigeria, governors retreat into silence or worse, travel abroad while their citizens mourn in confusion.
The Kirk tragedy shows that a functional state is not about perfection, it is about process. Citizens trust the system because the system works. Nigerians distrust the system because it rarely responds with urgency, transparency, or justice. Where America offers answers, Nigeria offers excuses.
On the night of June 13/14 in Yelewata, Benue State, 258 Nigerians were butchered in cold blood. Attackers stormed in on hundreds of motorbikes, killing, maiming, and burning. No single arrest has been made. Instead, the nation was served a media circus statements without substance, condolences without commitment. Sponsors and collaborators of the attackers, some embedded in government houses and emirates, continue to dispatch them for fresh killings. Their kinsmen shamelessly celebrate the massacre on TikTok.
Not one flag was lowered. Not even a curtain shifted. The governor of the state has not held a single press conference to brief citizens, nor has he shown any seriousness about justice. Worse still, part of the money donated for reconstruction is already suspected to have been siphoned into private pockets. In Nigeria, tragedy too easily becomes transaction.
And Yelewata is not an isolated wound. In 2018, over 200 were massacred in Plateau State till today, no justice. In 2014, 276 schoolgirls were abducted from Chibok, many remain unaccounted for. In 2022, Owo’s Catholic Church was turned into a slaughterhouse, dozens killed at the altar yet no mastermind punished. The litany is long Zaki Biam, Odi, Southern Kaduna graveyards upon graveyards, and the killers still walk free.
The difference is clear. America has leaders, Nigeria has dealers. In the U.S., politicians know that failing to act is political death. In Nigeria, they calculate that doing nothing is safer than upsetting their alliances with killers, sponsors, and vote banks.
The tragedy of Nigeria is not only the bloodshed, it is the indifference that follows. A country where condolence replaces accountability and silence substitutes for justice is a country living on borrowed time.
But history has no permanent night. One day, Nigeria will find her dawn. One day, this land will be led by people who understand that condolence without justice is cruelty, and silence in the face of slaughter is complicity. Nigeria shall one day be great but only when we bury our dealers and raise up leaders.
And back to Utah, where a father chose justice over blood. The father of Tyler Robinson, the suspected killer of Charlie Kirk, surrendered his own son to the authorities. That couldn’t have been easy. Robinson was no ordinary young man he lived in a $600,000 apartment, enjoyed a prestigious residential presidential scholarship reserved for the brightest minds, and was hailed as a straight-A prodigy. Yet brilliance without morality curdled into violence.
The young man planned to vanish after killing Kirk. Instead, his father, a retired officer, restrained him and handed him to the state. Another disgruntled big brain lost now facing the death penalty in Utah. It is now confirmed that the killing was political, not religious. Tyler Robinson is a Christian from a wealthy background, not a Muslim, not an immigrant, not transgender, not even a Democrat. Both his parents are registered members of Charlie Kirk’s own party.
The lesson here is,the enemy is not always outside, it is often within. Imagine if the shooter had been a Muslim or an immigrant the world would have exploded in blame. But this time, the world must face a harder truth: our biggest threats are rarely the strangers at the gate; they are the fractures within our own walls.
You cannot kill a good idea with a bullet. Once planted, an idea outlives the body that carried it. A bullet cannot silence a cause, nor erase its effects.
Charlie Kirk is gone. But his ideas right or wrong, loved or hated will ripple through generations. Tyler Robinson fired a shot at a man; instead, he launched a thousand debates, a thousand convictions, a thousand reflections on justice, leadership, and accountability.
So may Charlie rest in peace. And may Nigeria wake up from her shadows. For as America proves systems protect nations. And as Nigeria shows shadows consume them.
