Kebbi, Floods, and the Price of Truth – Abdul Mahmud

By Abdul Mahmud

Two videos shook Kebbi State last week. Both made their way to the phones of millions of Nigerians. Both laid bare a system that is broken. The first came from Kangiwa General Hospital. In it, an elderly patient lies on a bare metal bed frame. No mattress. No sheet. No dignity. The camera lingers long enough for outrage to form in the viewer’s mind. This is not a health facility. It is a holding pen for suffering. The second came from Birnin Kebbi, the state capital. A certain Dr Bello Saleh filmed hospital wards underwater. Patients stranded in flooded wards. Their families and caregivers keep vigil on verandas where dirty pools of rain and sewage gather, swarming with mosquitoes, the air thick with the smell of decay. The veranda becomes both shelter and prison, a place where hope wrestles daily with despair. The hospital remains a place submerged by incompetence. The images spread quickly. They went viral. They forced Nigerians to look. They forced Nigerians to ask: how did we get here?

Governor Nasir Idris had his answer. He reached for the dictator’s playbook. He ordered the arrest of Hassan Mai-Waya Kangiwa, the journalist who filmed the first video. The message was clear. Don’t show us what we don’t want to see. Don’t embarrass the state. Don’t speak truth to power. Dr Bello Saleh, who filmed the floods, still walks free for now. But anyone who watches Kebbi politics knows what might come. Silence is enforced slowly. First one arrested. Then another. Until everyone lowers their phone, shuts their mouth, and learns to look away.

This is not just about one journalist. This is about the right of citizens to see their world as it is. To know what their leaders are doing with public resources. To hold them accountable. When a journalist is arrested for showing the truth, it is every patient in Kangiwa Hospital who suffers. It is every family that must beg for care in a collapsing system. Think of the elderly women lying on bare beds. They could be our grandmothers. They could be our neighbours. They could be us. Their silence tells us something. They are used to being ignored. They are used to being left behind. The video gave them a voice. It forced us to confront their condition. Arresting the journalist does not give them mattresses. It does not fix the hospital. It only adds another victim to the long roll call of the forgotten.

The Kebbi State Government has tried to deflect. Officials claim the videos are old. They accuse critics of undermining the “good work” of Governor Nasir Idris’ administration. Yet, no one asks why an “old” hospital still looks like a prison ward. No one explains why, in 2025, flood waters still drown patients in their beds. The Governor has suspended his Health Commissioner, Yunusa Musa Ismail. But this is tokenism. A sacrifice to calm the storm. The rot goes deeper. It is about how we run government in Nigeria. It is about a culture where appearances matter more than human lives. Where shooting the messenger is easier than fixing the message.

The Centre for Reforms and Public Advocacy raised the alarm on the autocratic tendencies of Governor Nasir Idris long before the videos and the arrest of Hassan Mai-Waya Kangiwa became public. The group accused Kebbi authorities of turning security agencies into private enforcers. Harassment. Intimidation. Detention. These are the tools of a government that fears scrutiny. These are the tactics of power that long forgot its purpose. But let us remember what is at stake. This is about hospitals. About health. About life and death. In a country where the poor cannot fly abroad for treatment, hospitals like Kangiwa are their last hope. If they collapse, the people collapse. Arresting journalists will not build walls to keep out floodwater. Detaining whistleblowers will not buy mattresses for patients. Intimidation will not cure disease. Human beings are at the centre of this story. Not politicians. Not bureaucrats. Real people. Mothers clutching children in flooded wards. Elderly women wasting away on bare iron. Nurses forced to improvise care in impossible conditions. Journalists risking freedom so the world can see.

It is easy for rulers to call this blackmail. It is easy for them to claim mischief. But water no get enemy, as Fela famously described it. Water does not lie either. Metal beds without mattresses do not lie. Flooded wards do not lie. Human suffering cannot be spin-doctored away.

Kebbi is not alone. Across Nigeria, public hospitals are symbols of decay. They tell a story of looted budgets, of contracts inflated, of priorities misplaced. The poor die quietly. The powerful fly to London, to Dubai, to India. And the cycle continues. What happened in Kebbi last week is a test. It is a test of how far our rulers will go to silence dissent. It is a test of how much citizens will tolerate. And it is a test of whether Nigerians will stand by those who dare to show the truth.

We must resist the temptation to move on. Social media moves fast. Today it is Kebbi. Tomorrow it is Kano. Next week it is Lagos. Outrage fades. But the patients remain. Their suffering does not go viral. Their lives hang in limbo long after the hashtag dies. Journalists are not the enemy. They are witnesses. They hold up a mirror so we can see ourselves. When the state shatters that mirror, it does not change the face staring back. It only blinds us.

Kebbi’s leaders should have thanked Hassan Mai-Waya Kangiwa. They should have rushed mattresses to the wards. They should have drained the flood. They should have asked: how can we do better? Instead, they chose the path of fear. They chose handcuffs over healing. It is time for Nigerians to draw a line. No journalist should be arrested for showing reality. No citizen should be silenced for demanding better. Hospitals should be places of care, not crime scenes of neglect.

The elderly women on bare beds deserve more. Their caregivers wading knee-deep in floodwater deserve more. The journalist behind bars deserves more. And the people of Kebbi deserve rulers who serve them, not rulers who silence them. “Perhaps our rulers will only grasp the true meaning of service when the people finally rise in rebellion. After all, was it not Confucius who reminded us that “rebellion is born when rulers forget they are meant to serve”?

The videos may have gone viral, and the outrage may soon fade, but the truth will not. It lingers in the wards of Kangiwa, where patients lie on bare iron beds stripped of comfort and dignity. It drifts through the flooded corridors of Birnin Kebbi, where the sick are abandoned to rising waters. These images are not passing scandals; they are permanent indictments. They remind us of what it means to be forgotten in a land that promises so much yet delivers so little. The real question is not whether we have seen enough, but whether we will act. Other people, when pushed to the edge, have found the courage to rise. The Nepalese youths who occupied their parliament when corruption consumed their mountain republic did so because they could no longer endure decay in silence. Nigerians, too, must confront the choice between resignation and resolve. Will we look away, scroll past, and accept indignity as normal? Or will we decide, once and for all, that rulers who forget their duty can be compelled by the people to remember it? We cannot look away. We cannot scroll past. To accept indignity as normal is to surrender our humanity. The people of Kebbi and Nigerians everywhere must demand accountability with persistence that cannot be silenced by arrests or threats. Rulers who forget their duty must be reminded that power is not a shield against truth. If service will not flow from their conscience, then pressure must come from the people. Change will not arrive by miracle; it will arrive because citizens insist that those who govern must finally serve.