Former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, has condemned the killing of an abducted Nigerian in Borgu, Niger State, whose severed head was reportedly sent to a community leader as part of a ₦50 million ransom demand, calling for the nation to stop treating such atrocities as routine.
In a statement posted on his X handle, Obi said the incident deepens the anguish he first voiced on 27 August over the abduction of roughly 600 people from the area, many of them women, children and the elderly.
He said continuing reports now point to the killing of some of those held captive, while many others remain missing.
Obi argued that if the beheading was meant to pressure the community into paying more for the remaining hostages, it confirms a troubling pattern: human life being used as leverage.
“One person is killed to terrorise an entire community, while others are kept alive as hostages for more ransom,” he said, describing this as evidence of a broader collapse in the value placed on life, not mere criminal activity.
He stressed that the victims are not statistics but Nigerians with families, and that their only failing was living in communities where state protection has grown increasingly weak.
Obi called on the country to confront a “fundamental question”: at what point does Nigeria decide that mass kidnappings, killings, community levies, displacement and ransom payments are no longer acceptable as routine occurrences.
He noted that insecurity’s toll extends well beyond direct victims, uprooting families, destroying farms and businesses, and interrupting children’s education.
He urged the government to move from reactive responses to intelligence-led security operations, stronger community protection, faster response times, better-equipped security forces, tighter border controls and sustained pressure on criminal networks.
“The primary responsibility of government is the security and welfare of its citizens,” Obi said, adding that while politicians focus on elections, ordinary Nigerians are simply asking for the right to live.
He closed by insisting that prayers alone are insufficient without concrete government action to restore security and protect human dignity.
