Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, who ran for president in the past, is worried about what he calls the underreporting of mass killings across Nigeria. He says that the growing silence around the violence shows a dangerous devaluation of human lives.
Olawepo-Hashim said that the repeated attacks in different parts of the country show that the security crisis is getting worse and not getting the attention it needs, both in Nigeria and from the rest of the world.
On Sunday, April 12, 2026, the former presidential candidate said in a statement that was made available to the press that the true scale of the killings was being “dangerously underreported and increasingly normalised.”
Hashim is worried about the killings in Kebbi.
He talked about recent attacks in the Shanga Local Government Area of Kebbi State, where more than 40 people are said to have died in the last week.
He said that local sources said the death toll could go up even more because more bodies were still being found after the attacks.
He also said that the violence destroyed several homes, making life even harder for people in the affected communities.
Olawepo-Hashim said that the same area had been attacked before, and that attack reportedly killed at least seven people. He called the repeated attacks disturbing and mostly unchecked.
He said, “What we are seeing is a pattern of mass killings that don’t keep people in the country or around the world angry.”
The politician also talked about similar events in Kwara State, especially in the Kaiama, Baruten, and Ifelodun local government areas, where he said between 20 and 50 people had been killed in the past few weeks.
He said that five forest guards were among the victims and that many of the incidents didn’t get much attention outside of local news outlets.
He says that the lack of coverage of these deadly attacks is part of a worrying trend in which big killings are no longer taken seriously.
Olawepo-Hashim also said that the violence in the North-Central region was still very worrying, pointing to the fact that people were being killed over and over again in Benue and Plateau states.
He said that Benue State saw between 50 and 100 deaths in just a few weeks, while Plateau State saw coordinated night attacks that reportedly killed between 30 and 80 people.
He also said that Niger State and Nasarawa State had deaths of 20 to 50 and 10 to 20, respectively.
He said that the total number of deaths in the affected areas could be between 130 and 300 in a short amount of time.
Olawepo-Hashim called the situation “alarming” and said that the international community was responding to the killings with “selective attention and dangerous silence.”
He said that global organizations like the United Nations and the African Union had not done enough to respond to the attacks, even though they were happening in many parts of the country.
He says that the lack of response has only made people more worried that Nigerians’ lives aren’t getting the respect they deserve during times of national tragedy.
He said, “There is a growing belief that Nigerian lives have been so devalued that even simple condolences are no longer given.”
