Kwara: The Slaughter House — A State Betrayed by Leadership -By Michael Oyewole

For over five months, these terrorists had been sending warning letters and pamphlets to these communities. They announced their intention to “preach” Islam to them. They demanded surrender. The villagers reported this strange incident to ALL relevant authorities. The intelligence was there. And what did the government do? Nothing. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

In the early hours of February 3, 2026, the villages of Woro and Nuku in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State were turned into a literal slaughterhouse. Jihadist terrorists preaching a twistedly strange, bloodthirsty doctrine stormed in around 5 p.m. They went from house to house, rounding up residents, binding their hands behind their backs, and executing them in cold blood. Some were shot at close range. Others had their throats slit. Many were burned alive inside their own homes. By the time the carnage ended around 3 a.m., at least 170 innocent souls were lost, needlessly. Homes were razed. Businesses looted. Women and children were stolen from their places of abode. The air reeked of smoke, tears blood, and the stench of government failure.

The village head, Umar Bio Salihu, lost two sons. His wife and three daughters were dragged, excruciatingly, into the bush. He hid and watched helplessly as the killers rampaged for nearly ten hours. When security forces finally showed up? They were ten hours late. Ten hours of uninterrupted murder.

This was no surprise attack. It was premeditated. Carefully planned and brutally executed. Unchallenged!

The warnings were ignored, dismissed, or simply filed away in the same dusty drawer where every other cry for help from Kwara’s rural communities has gone to die.

And now? Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq calls it a “cowardly expression of frustration by terrorist cells.” President Bola Tinubu condemns it as “beastly” and orders an army battalion to move in after the bodies are already cold. This is the same tired script we have heard for years: condemn, promise “stronger presence,” deploy troops reactively, and then move on until the next massacre.

Kwara State is bleeding. Kidnappings have become routine. Bandits operate with impunity in the forests. Communities live in constant fear. The state that once prided itself on relative peace has become the new frontier for Boko Haram splinters, ISWAP affiliates, and Lakurawa terrorists spilling over from neighboring states.

Yet our leaders keep pretending this is just “frustration” rather than the direct result of criminal negligence, intelligence failure, and outright abandonment of the people.

How many more villages must be turned into charnel houses before someone is held accountable? How many more mothers must bury their children because security agencies to act on clear warnings? How many more times will we hear the same hollow statements while terrorists collect “levies,” preach openly, and plan mass murder under the nose of the state?
Kwara is not just insecure. Kwara has been abandoned. The government has blood on its hands not from pulling the trigger, but from refusing to stop those who did.

The people of Woro and Nuku did not die because they were weak. They died because their leaders were weak. They died because the system that was supposed to protect them chose inaction over intervention.
Enough is enough. The slaughter must stop. The excuses must end. The people of Kwara demand real security, real intelligence, and real leadership—not press statements and belated troop movements.

Until then, Kwara State remains what it has tragically become: Nigeria’s open-air slaughterhouse.

Michael Oyewole, a public affairs analysts writes from Ilogbo-Ekiti and can be reached via oyewolemichael9@gmail.com