There is a difficult question many Nigerians are beginning to ask: why does it often feel like ordinary citizens are the ones repeatedly asked to retreat while criminal elements continue to expand their territories?
The recent advisory urging Christians in parts of Kwara and Kogi States to temporarily suspend Ori Oke (prayer mountain) gatherings has opened an uncomfortable conversation. Officially, the justification is security. Mountains, forests, and isolated locations have increasingly become operational spaces for kidnappers, bandits, and armed groups. On paper, the warning appears logical. In reality, however, it touches a deep national nerve, exposing a profound, systemic weakness in how we manage public safety.
The Irony of Restricting the Last Line of Hope
For many worshippers, Ori Oke is not merely a physical geographic location. It is symbolism. It is refuge. It is where people go when the economy bites harder than expected, when insecurity enters their communities, when hospitals fail, when jobs disappear, and when hope becomes difficult to hold.
There is a painful irony here. When a government struggles to answer the practical prayers of its people for safety and economic stability, telling them to stop going to the mountains to pray feels like a double blow. If the system cannot solve the problem, it shouldn't cut people off from appealing to a higher power. To a desperate populace, an advisory like this doesn’t just sound like a safety warning; it feels like being asked to surrender their very last ditch of hope.
"I flee to the hills from whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." For communities already entirely reliant on the forests and nearby lands for their daily bread, farming, and survival, being systematically cut off from these spaces—and then told to avoid their spiritual sanctuaries as well—is deeply frustrating.
A Slow-Moving Giant
The reality is that this insecurity didn't appear overnight. On the ground, people have seen this storm brewing for more than a decade. The signs were predictable, yet the state’s response has historically resembled a slow-moving behemoth—an entity that fails to react in good time, waiting until a crisis peaks before scrambling to respond.
When the primary solution to banditry in our forests is to tell citizens to stay away from the mountains, it looks less like a strategic victory and more like an admission of helplessness. If the mountains are dangerous, the instruction should simply be to secure the mountains, not to implicitly suggest that people should stop seeking spiritual solace.
The larger concern is whether Nigeria is gradually normalizing a dangerous pattern where criminality dictates how citizens worship, move, learn, farm, or gather. Security advisories must never quietly evolve into social restrictions created by an inability to defeat lawlessness.
Moving Beyond Perception to Action
At the same time, outrage should not replace reason. There is currently no public evidence showing that this advisory was designed to target a specific faith or stop Christians from praying. Prayer itself is not the target. However, in a fragile, highly sensitive society, perception matters. Government communication must recognize that faith spaces carry emotional and cultural significance far beyond ordinary public gatherings.
This moment demands aggressive, proactive mobilization, not passive advisories. The solutions are straightforward but require political will:
Reclaim the Spaces: Security agencies must decisively flush out criminal networks from the vulnerable routes, forests, and border communities that they have occupied.
Community Collaboration: Religious leaders and local institutions must work together to strengthen grass-roots vigilance, improve intelligence sharing, and actively protect their congregations.
For organizations committed to justice, human dignity, and community resilience, including PSJ UK, this conversation goes far beyond a religious debate. It speaks to a fundamental human right: no society should force its citizens to choose between safety and worship, between faith and survival, or between spiritual comfort and physical security.
Violence unchecked travels fast. Fear spreads even faster. The state must start moving quicker than both.
: Author:
Ifeoluwaniyi Igunnubole
