Last week, Nigeria was gripped by the Ibom Air saga. The drama dominated headlines, ignited online platforms, and sparked heated debates across the country. Institutions as reputable as the Nigerian Bar Association, the umbrella body of all lawyers in Nigeria, joined frontline political figures in condemning what was widely described as an unfair, dehumanising treatment meted out to one young lady, Comfort.
The public outcry was so intense that the Federal Government swiftly announced the withdrawal of the charge filed against her. Eyewitnesses emerged with their “firsthand accounts,” some transmuting overnight into social media celebrities, featuring on primetime television interviews and motivational talk circuits. Comfort, in just a few hours, became a national sensation.
Endorsements poured in: promises of an overseas trip, plots of land in Abuja and Delta, a political heavyweight offering her a ₦500,000 monthly job, even the gift of an iPhone 16 Pro Max. Comfort’s name has since trended nonstop, with endorsements arriving by the second.
But one question lingers: would Nigerians have responded with the same overwhelming support had her body not been inadvertently exposed during the altercation? The honest answer may be a loud, uncomfortable No.
This incident invites us to reflect on the contradictions in our collective moral compass. When bandits and herders massacre innocent Nigerians across the North-West, North-Central, or South-East, the news hardly survives 48 hours in our public discourse. Unarmed civilians are slain, yet the story fades almost as quickly as it breaks. But let a lady’s privacy be compromised, or a celebrity scandal erupt, and the country is glued to screens for weeks, hashtags multiplying endlessly.
Juxtapose this with the plight of our brilliant graduates: first-class students, innovators, and thinkers who roam the streets unemployed. How many of them have received half the attention, endorsements, or promises of comfort (pun intended) showered on this young lady? The bitter truth is: Nigeria rewards spectacle, not substance.
To be clear, the legal institutions that condemned Comfort’s mistreatment spoke from a place of genuine concern, for her constitutionally guaranteed rights were undeniably violated. But what about the avalanche of material largesse? Were they driven by principle, or by physical allure? One of my respected colleagues observed that those scrambling to “out-offer” one another may have been propelled not by empathy, but by the desire to possess what they had already seen. This, unfortunately, is the depth to which our moral values have sunk.
And why? Because years of misgovernance have abandoned millions of Nigerian youths to their fate. With leadership failures suffocating opportunities, social media has become their sanctuary, their coping mechanism, their only marketplace of relevance. But here lies the danger: when the applause is always for the wrong values, we are unconsciously scripting a tragic future.
