By Sar Terver
Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s recent visit to Plateau State came wrapped in food supplies, financial pledges, and soft words of comfort for distraught family members of terror in the heat of the moment at the Plateau, formerly seen as a habitat for tourists.
Beyond these gestures, was a loud silence; the kind that emerges when those in power begin to run out of explanations and the governed run out of hope, especially for families undergoing deep emotional wounds and trauma.
In a land, which has been under the grip of armed groups that kill and maiming residents almost on a daily routine and burial grounds compete with playgrounds, the First Lady’s voice trembled with sincerity as she said what many have long felt: “Enough. We are tired.”
Those few words, though personal and emotional, sank as an unintentional indictment of the state’s failure to stop the killings. The phrase “we are tired” does not only reflect public despair; it betrays a sense of helplessness at the highest levels.
For many Plateau residents, who have buried family and friends under the shadow of mass violence, the statement was a mirror to their own exhaustion, only this time, it came from the wife of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
Her appeal to the people to rebuild for peace and progress may have been well-meaning, but for many it raised the question: how does a community rebuild when it has no certainty that attackers won’t return the next night?
What does development mean when survival itself is no longer guaranteed? While the First Lady spoke of returning for tourism and the Plateau of the past, many citizens are still trying to make sense of a present that offers neither security nor justice.
Governor Caleb Mutfwang’s response acknowledged her empathy, calling her a true mother and commending her for standing with Plateau through its trials.
He listed the ongoing efforts by religious, traditional, and political leaders to end the violence. Yet his remarks, though hopeful, hovered in a space between political reassurance and a deeper recognition of how fragile peace has become.
The idea of “efforts underway” has long become a placeholder in Nigeria’s political vocabulary, often repeated, rarely resolved.
Senator Oluremi Tinubu came to the Plateau with a big pie. Through the Renewed Hope Initiative, in partnership with the ASM Foundation, 1,800 vulnerable households received food items.
The plan to send a trailer-load of food monthly for a year was unveiled, a practical gesture to ease hunger, though not enough to banish fear.
A ₦1 billion donation was also announced to support the most vulnerable in Plateau — a move that demonstrates the weight of the humanitarian crisis, but also highlights the cost of a government playing catch-up after years of unheeded warnings and unchecked violence.
She also promised ₦200,000 cash grants to 250 persons with disabilities in every state of the federation.
Even in this promise, the odd mention of Essex—a location outside Nigeria—introduced a surreal note that reminded many just how far removed government policies often feel from the grounded realities of those suffering.
Senator Tinubu’s presence did project compassion, but it also magnified the scale of the rot. If the First Lady has to personally intervene with food and cash in a part of the country, then what does that say of the institutions whose job it is to prevent such collapse in the first place? Her visit appeared more symbolic than systemic, more of a bandage than a cure.
In Plateau, as in many parts of Nigeria, humanitarian aid has become a substitute for security. It is a country where relief comes more quickly than justice, and where the next attack is often just a village away.
Senator Tinubu’s visit, therefore, was not just a mission of empathy; it was a tour through the heart of a broken nation, where official fatigue now mirrors public despair.
Hope, once rooted in ballots and manifestos, now flickers in bags of rice and televised pledges of N1 billion donation, which the First Lady claimed wasn’t from government coffers, as Midas touch.
But that flicker dims when Citizens hear from the high places that the government too is tired. What then remains, if not surrender?
For the people of Plateau, the First Lady’s visit may be remembered less for what was given and more for what was said, a confession of exhaustion in a time that demands resolve.
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