By Stephanie Shaakaa
How long will we keep typing “Rest in Peace” with trembling fingers, only to scroll past the next headline? How long will condolence statements substitute for action while villages burn, children cry, and crops rot in abandoned fields? In Nigeria today, grief has become ritual. The death of citizens, farmers, traders, worshippers, is just a line in a news cycle, a hashtag in our feeds, a fleeting trend on Twitter. By morning, we have moved on, until the next tragedy interrupts our breakfast.
It is not only citizens on social media who type “Rest in Peace” and move on. The government does it. Security agencies do it. Religious leaders do it. Even the press does it. Condolence after condolence, statement after statement, hashtags, tweets, press releases, the ritual is unbroken. And yet, the killings continue. Herders strike again, villages burn again, children cry again.
The soil has swallowed more of our people than we collectively complain about food prices, fuel hikes, or daily power failures. Yet somehow, when villages burn, when children are orphaned, when farmers are massacred, our outrage is fleeting, measured in three words, REST IN PEACE, before we return to the next inconvenience.
Rest in Peace is not a solution. It does not stop the next attack. It does not rebuild homes, rescue farms, protect markets, or bring justice to widows. It is words without action, ritual without responsibility. And the danger of this ritual is that it makes us believe we have done enough when nothing has changed.
If mourning were a policy, Nigeria would be safe. But mourning is not a shield, not a strategy, not a deterrent. It is only a pause, a breath we take before tragedy repeats itself. Every time we lean on condolences instead of accountability, we teach violence that it can strike, unpunished, again.
This week alone, the pattern repeated with shocking consistency. In Kwara State, herders massacred over 160 villagers in Woro and Nuku, burning homes and looting markets as families fled. In Katsina, nearly two dozen civilians were killed in another assault. In Benue, traders were ambushed at markets, lives lost, livelihoods destroyed, while security forces responded too late. In Kaduna, 166 worshippers kidnapped last month were miraculously released, but no one tells the story of who kidnapped them, how negotiations happened, or whether ransoms were paid. Instead, we are shown staged smiles, matching outfits, and photos for the cameras. And just like that, the narrative tips back into silence. Condolences flow faster than accountability. Mourning has replaced justice. Nigeria has become a Funeral Nation, skilled at grief but blind to responsibility.
Condolences do not protect communities. They do not arrest perpetrators. They do not rebuild burnt homes or plant seeds in abandoned fields. Yet the government’s response is predictable, a tweet of sympathy, an official visit, a promise of investigation that disappears faster than morning mist. Meanwhile, herders continue to kill, victims pile up, and the nation scrolls past, numbed into routine.
We must stop reducing tragedies to numbers. Children wake up orphaned, haunted by memories of violence. Women return to empty homes, grieving husbands lost in attacks that are no longer news. Farmers abandon fields, leaving crops to rot, feeding hunger that compounds insecurity. We mourn their deaths with hashtags, but we ignore their lives after the headlines fade.
Language matters, and in Nigeria, it shields failure. Clashes instead of massacres. Unknown gunmen instead of identifiable criminals. Suspected herders instead of accountable perpetrators. Euphemisms soften outrage, diffuse responsibility, and protect the powerful. This is not poor journalism. This is complicity.
If this happened in your hometown, would you tweet Rest in Peace and leave it at that? Would you stage a photo-op with released captives in matching outfits and call it closure? Your silence and performative empathy are louder than your action. You are telling citizens that lives are expendable, that violence is acceptable, that grief is enough.
We cannot continue to mourn in silence. Hashtags and condolences are not enough. Social media is powerful, yes, but if it only amplifies grief without demanding accountability, it becomes a tool of complacency. We must demand transparency about kidnappings, public identification and prosecution of perpetrators, evidence of action beyond statements, and a security strategy that protects life, not optics.
The dead may rest in peace. The living cannot. Not while condolence is louder than justice. Not while photo-op Asoebi replaces accountability. Not while headlines fade but insecurity remains. Nigeria has become a Funeral Nation, brilliant at mourning, hopeless at protecting. This is not tradition, this is failure. Every Rest in Peace we type without demanding change is a reminder of our national negligence.
Nigeria has become a nation of funerals, not solutions. We post #RIP faster than the government arrests perpetrators. Condolences are easier than consequences, and we all know it. When did mourning become a national pastime, and action an afterthought? The dead rest in peace. The living are abandoned.
Stephanie Shaakaa writes shaakaastephanie@yahoo.com