Peace Udoka’s Story and The Nigerian Tragedy – Abdul Mahmud

By Abdul Mahmud

Abuja. 23rd September, 2025. A date that should have been remembered with joy. A day when over 4,000 young Nigerians were called to the Bar. A day when parents celebrated the long nights of study, the tuition paid with borrowed money, the endless sacrifices. Among them was Onyesom Peace Udoka. A young woman. A daughter. A lawyer. She had crossed the threshold of professional life. She wore the wig. She signed her name into history. She smiled. Her parents wept with pride. But joy, in our country, is fragile. A few days later, Peace left Abuja for Benin City. She never arrived. Somewhere near Okene, on the now notorious highway, she was kidnapped. The happiness of her call to the Bar evaporated. Replaced with fear. Replaced with grief. Replaced with that heavy silence that only comes when a loved one is held by men without conscience. Her family is now crowdfunding. They need N20 million. They are begging for it. They are pleading for it. They are reaching out to strangers. Their daughter’s life has been reduced to a price.

It is tragic. It is common. It is Nigeria. What a country.

The poet laureate, Wole Soyinka, in Abiku, captured this irony when he wrote that “the ripest fruit was saddest”. What he meant is clear: joy carries within it the seed of grief. Celebration is shadowed by sorrow. The day of triumph can turn to mourning. We see this in Peace’s story. A young lawyer who should be building her career now waits in some unknown forest. She is at the mercy of heartless men who see her not as a person, but as a bargaining chip. Peace is not just a name in the news. She is someone’s daughter. She is a sister. A friend. A neighbour. She is our colleague at the Bar. She is one of us. Her parents, who made sacrifices to send her to school, now face the impossible: to pay millions to criminals or risk never seeing their daughter again. This is not just their tragedy. It is ours. Because what happened to Peace can happen to anyone. And it happens every day across Nigeria. The road where she was abducted has become notorious. Families now dread long journeys. Every trip on our highways is a gamble with death or abduction. Criminal gangs have turned interstate travel into a market of human suffering. Nigerians move in fear, glancing at every checkpoint, dreading every stretch of forested road. Our highways have become theatres of horror. But this is not just about bandits. It is about the failure of a state that has abdicated its most basic duty: the protection of its citizens. It is about a government that promises security but delivers insecurity. It is about a country where even the joy of professional achievement is poisoned by the fear of violence. The ripest fruit, Soyinka reminds us, can turn out the saddest.

This is the Nigeria we have built. Or rather, the Nigeria that has been destroyed by those who govern us. Kidnapping has become routine. Families sell land. Families empty savings. Families beg strangers online. Families pray. Some get their loved ones back. Some bury them. All are scarred forever. We can no longer pretend this is unusual. It is a national epidemic. A slow-moving tragedy eating away at our humanity. Every highway is a danger zone. Every journey is a gamble with fate. Every phone call from an unknown number sends chills down the spine. But Peace’s story cuts deeper. Because she represents hope. She represents achievement. She represents the Nigeria we claim to celebrate – young, educated, determined. And yet, the country could not protect her. The state, with all its police, soldiers, checkpoints, and slogans, has abandoned her.

She is not alone. Many weeks before Peace’s abduction, 17 students of the Federal University Gusau in Zamfara were taken from their hostels in the dead of night. Parents wailed. Authorities promised action. But the students remained in captivity for weeks. Their youth stolen, their future interrupted. Months earlier, in Kaduna, clerics on their way to a religious conference were ambushed. A respected Imam was dragged into the bush. His congregation raised ransom. Sermons on peace gave way to frantic appeals for money. Faith itself was held hostage. Somewhere in Benue State, law students returning from their externship in the South East were kidnapped. They secured their release only after hefty ransoms were paid to their abductors. In Plateau, farmers working their land were seized by gunmen. They were marched barefoot into forests. Their captors demanded millions that their families could never afford. Some never returned. Their fields now lie fallow, their communities broken. Travellers, too, have become constant targets. Luxury buses are stopped at gunpoint. Passengers are forced into the bush. Mothers with babies, students returning to school, traders carrying goods, all stripped of dignity and reduced to commodities in a cruel marketplace. For every Peace Udoka, there are countless nameless others whose stories fade without attention.

This is the broader tragedy. Peace’s case shocks us because she is young, brilliant, and recently celebrated. But the truth is that her ordeal is part of a daily cycle that consumes ordinary Nigerians. Kidnapping has become a business. It feeds on our fear. It thrives on government inaction. And it keeps growing. Parents pay school fees with sweat. They train their children. They watch them succeed. Then they are forced to pay again, this time to criminals, just to keep their children alive. A cycle of ransom and despair. Those who rule us do not travel these roads. They do not know the fear of a bus driver whispering that “this stretch is dangerous”. They do not see mothers clutching their daughters tightly as they pass through forests that have become bandit kingdoms. But ordinary Nigerians see it. Ordinary Nigerians live it. And ordinary Nigerians, like Peace’s family, pay the price. Is this what it means to be a Nigerian parent? To give your child to the country, and to get back ransom notes?

We must ask: how did we get here?

Banditry thrives because the state is weak. Police are underpaid. Soldiers are overstretched. Checkpoints are compromised. Intelligence is poor. Roads are abandoned. Villages are left to defend themselves. Bandits know this. They know there will be no swift rescue. They know that ransom is guaranteed. And so they kidnap. Again. And again. Every successful ransom payment funds the next abduction. Every family’s desperation feeds the cycle. And yet, what can they do? Refuse? Risk their child’s life? No parent can do that. This is why Peace’s family is crowdfunding. They have no choice. They must beg strangers to help raise N20 million. Because their daughter’s life depends on it. But, let us not forget what that means. N20 million is not a number on a screen. It is land to be sold. It is years of savings. It is debt to be incurred. It is desperation disguised as mathematics.

We are now right in the heart of the ransom economy that is rapidly swallowing the fortunes of families. It is breaking, if not broken the poor. It is thriving because the state is absent. But, behind the ransom is a human story. A mother who cannot sleep. A father who blames himself. Siblings who whisper prayers. Friends who wonder if they will ever see her again. Peace herself, somewhere in the dark, wondering if she will survive. She is not alone. There are countless others. Students, farmers, clerics, travellers. Names we may never know. Faces we may never see. But all part of the same national tragedy. But, we cannot let this be reduced to numbers. Behind every figure is a beating heart, a young woman, a lawyer, a daughter, with dreams and a future now held hostage.

What does this say about our country? That we invest so much in education, only to hand our brightest to the forests? That we celebrate professional milestones, only for them to become ransom targets? The irony is unbearable. But irony will not save Peace. Words will not release her. Posts on social media will not comfort her mother. Only decisive action will. Action by the state. Action by our rukers. Action that has been absent for far too long. So, we must demand. We must shout. We must not let this pass as just another case. Because every case we ignore prepares the ground for the next abduction.

If our country cannot protect Peace, then who among us can ever feel secure? While her name has now become more than an identity, it is now a mirror of our collective failure. Onyesom Peace Udoka. A young lawyer. Called to the Bar with joy, only to be kidnapped days later in the same country that should have celebrated and safeguarded her. She is no longer just one person’s daughter; she has become the symbol of a country’s broken promise. Her story should unsettle us, stir our conscience, and force us to confront the harsh truth: that in Nigeria today, the line between triumph and tragedy is vanishingly thin.

The happiest day has become the saddest. An oxymoron, yes. But also, a mirror. A mirror reflecting the betrayal of our country. Until the kidnappers release her, her family waits. Until the state acts, we all wait. And while we wait, more will be taken. This cannot be the destiny of a people. Nigeria must choose: to protect its citizens, or to continue burying them under ransom notes and grief. The choice is urgent. The clock is ticking. Peace is waiting. For now, Peace waits. Her family waits. We all wait. And in that waiting, we see the face of a nation in crisis. Our country must decide whether to protect us, citizens or abandon us to the forests. A country must choose whether the ripest fruit will remain the saddest.