When we push back against the stereotypes and profiling of the North—especially narratives that strip its people of their humanity or, as one mob agitator once put it, frame their culture as something that must “completely die off and be replaced with something fit for human civilisation”—we do so to prevent precisely the kind of horror that transpired in Edo State.
There is no barbarism worse than the extrajudicial killing of a fellow human being, whether in Sokoto or Udune Efandion, Uromi, Edo State. Words are not mere expressions of sentiment; they carry the weight of influence, and when delivered with hate, they become weapons. This was how those innocent northerners, merely traversing their own country to earn a dignified living instead of settling for a life of crime, were cast as preys for slaughter.
The massacre of these 16 northerners isn’t an isolated case. In May 2022, a pregnant woman, Harira Jibril, and her children were killed at Isulo, Anambra State, along with six others identified as northern Nigerians. They were not in the process of committing a crime; they were travelling through a part of the country that saw them as people from a culture that deserved to die off. Yet northerners, despite all the violence attributed to the region, have been incredible hosts to southerners, embracing them in their villages and cities.
The reality is that northerners have been unfairly vilified in Nigeria, made to bear collective guilt for the actions of a few bad actors. Even international observers have bought into this misleading agenda, with some amplifying the ridiculous claim that Boko Haram targets only Christians, despite data showing that Muslims have been the group’s worst victims. This misrepresentation is also due, in part, to the fact that northerners are underrepresented in media ownership and lack the platforms to set the record straight.
During the Buhari government, my friend Abdulrahman Usman Leme was the leading voice in calling out the media for failing to pay attention to the danger of pathologising the Fulani, who were stripped of their humanity and thrown under the bus. They were hated by an entire nation for the crimes of criminals from their ethnic group, as though the entire Fulani community had convened to mastermind a crime against a people or the nation. This was made even worse by President Buhari’s Fulani affiliation.
This prejudice didn’t emerge from a vacuum. What is frightening is that the masterminds in the South are characters who pride themselves on being the most civilised. They measure civilisational superiority not by moral character but by academic credentials. Yet true civilisation is not defined by literacy alone but by a society’s commitment to justice and equality. A sane society is one where no one is deemed inferior and no community is punished for the crimes of individuals who happen to share their ethnicity, religion, or region.
What happened in Edo was not justice, nor was it a response to any crime. It was pure, unfiltered hatred. And a section of the media, through its reckless framing and dehumanisation of northerners over the past decades, fuelled this dangerous climate. They turned fellow citizens into targets for violence and enabled tragedies like this to unfold.
