Conflict Specific Dialogue: The Value of a Nigerian Life, Memory, Accountability and the Politics of Preventable Death

Nigerian Lives Matter!

Life expectancy in Nigeria is 54.5 years, which, according to the World Bank, is the lowest in the world. Not even countries at war compare with Nigeria. Across the country, communities are being displaced, livelihoods being destroyed, and too many families are forced to live with absence.

A child who never returned from school.

A farmer whose farm is destroyed in a terror pillage or worse still, never comes back from the field. A trader whose market stall now sits empty.

A community forced to bury its dead while still waiting for answers. A people forced out of their homes, lands and communities by bandits, and terror groups.

In March 2026 alone, more than 1,135 people were killed. Over the last five years, Nigeria has recorded more than 36,026 killings and 22,861 abductions linked directly to violent conflicts, attacks by armed groups, communal violence, and abuses by both state and non-state actors. These figures point to the state’s abdication of its duty to protect the most fundamental of all human rights: the right to life.

The crisis has also taken a heavy toll on Nigeria’s security personnel, many of whom are overstretched, under-equipped, and deployed to multiple theatres of conflict with limited support. Between 2019 and 2025, at least 3,422 security personnel were killed. This is not only a tragic loss of lives in uniform; it is also a warning sign of a security architecture struggling under the weight of a crisis it has not been adequately resourced or reformed to confront.

In many communities, especially across the North and Middle Belt, killings, abductions, displacement, and pillage have continued and are growing in scale as perpetrators are increasingly emboldened by the government’s failure to ensure accountability for insecurity. Survivors point to delayed security responses, destroyed livelihoods, repeated attacks despite prior warnings, and the painful reality that many perpetrators are never identified, prosecuted, or held accountable.

This should not be normal. Never.

Nine Years In. The Need Is Greater Than Ever.

In 2018, over a hundred civil society actors gathered around a difficult question: if protests no longer move the political class, what will?

The response was the National Day of Mourning and Remembrance, a citizen-led symbolic movement to honour the memories of the victims of mass atrocities and confront the dangerous normalization of perennial insecurity in Nigeria.

This May 28 marks its 9th commemoration.

This year’s theme, “Nigerian Lives Matter,” is both a moral demand and a national challenge. It calls on the government to protect lives, pursue justice, and end impunity. It also calls on citizens to refuse silence, numbness, and the slow acceptance of mass suffering.

Because remembrance is not a weakness.

Remembrance is resistance.

28 Days. Different Stories. One Reckoning.

Through the month of May, the campaign will spotlight different forms of mass atrocities and violence affecting communities across Nigeria, including abductions, terror-pillage, communal violence, extrajudicial killings, attacks on farmers, forced displacement, and other documented realities.

The campaign will also feature conflict dialogues, media conversations, digital advocacy, survivor storytelling, and public engagement activities focused on remembrance, accountability, prevention, and the protection of lives.

Because a people that cannot name what is happening to them cannot fight it.

How You Can Show Up

Speak Up

Join or host a conflict-specific dialogue physically or online before May 28. Use your platform, institution, classroom, community, or media space to raise conversations about insecurity, accountability, remembrance, and citizen responsibility.

Share

Post and repost campaign materials, verified data, survivor narratives, videos, and advocacy content throughout the month. Let the stories travel. Let the algorithm work for accountability.

You can also generate your campaign DP here: https://getdp.co/Yuk

Stand

On May 28 at exactly 12 noon, Nigerians across the country will observe a National Minute of Silence in honour of victims of violent killings. Wherever you are, pause and acknowledge the lives lost.

Wear

Wear black on May 28. A ribbon. An armband. A full outfit. Let it be a visible refusal to pretend everything is fine.

Lead

We encourage institutions to fly flags at half-mast, issue public statements of remembrance, and create spaces for reflection in their communities and workplaces.

Use the hashtags:

#NigerianLivesMatter

#NDOM2026

Nine years of protesting these senseless forms of insecurity should not still be necessary. But here we are, still standing, still speaking, and still refusing to let Nigeria forget what it owes its own people: The right to life!