-By Abdul Mahmud
Something distinctly unsettling stirred when my young friend and colleague at the Bar, Festus Ogun, quietly reversed course from his initial social media post in which he rightly drew public attention to the plight of the “Yola Six”, the law students abducted en route to resume studies at the Nigerian Law School in Yola after their externship in the south east. His later post, this time applauding the Nigeria Police for the successful rescue of the “Yola Six” struck a discordant note. The facts, as later confirmed by two of the victims, told a different story. Not just different but diametrically opposed to the claim of the police.
Festus, one must concede, was most likely swept up in the moment, buoyed by what he believed to be credible information from the police. Who could blame him? At the centre of it all were the lives and liberties of six promising students whose futures hung precariously in the balance, held captive by criminals who recognise neither law nor the sanctity of human life. Still, the relief that greeted the eventual release of the students does not wash away the bitter aftertaste of official dishonesty and falsehood that reveals a deeper crisis of integrity within the Nigerian state. When the custodians of public trust lie, when the state manufactures its own myths of heroism in the face of tragedy, one must ask: what else is it willing to fabricate? And why?
In the realm of public life, a state that lies does more than twist facts. It corrodes trust, fractures the moral contract between citizens and the state, and raises unsettling questions about whose truth matters. Today, in our country, official lies are no longer an aberration. They are the Directive Principles of State Policy. They are the practices of power performed without shame. Two weeks ago, six law students were kidnapped on their journey from the Southeast to Yola, in the Northeast, where they were to resume their Nigerian Law School studies. Young men, driven by the dream of law and justice, were intercepted by gunmen, abducted, tortured, and used as pawns in a ransom trade. The students’ accounts, as narrated by Reverend Ernest Okafor and David Obiora, both victims, revealed a chilling, yet tragically familiar story: departure from Onitsha on the morning of July 26; ambush between Zakibiam and Mukari, Benue State, by nightfall; relocation into the womb of a forest; physical abuse, trauma, and ransom negotiations that dropped from N50m each to N10m each before their eventual release on August 1. The state watched. Then came the lie. The Nigerian Police, in a bid to grab headlines and polish tarnished image, released a statement claiming credit for rescuing all six students. A triumphalist announcement, devoid of detail, dripping with spin. But Rev. Okafor countered it with chilling clarity: “The police played no role in our release”. None. The families paid. The six kidnapped law students were released. But, it raises the question: Why does the state lie?
It lies because it can. It lies because truth has no constituency in a country where power is unaccountable. It lies because the state has, over time, developed an addiction to orchestrated spectacle. A need to be seen to act, even when it has not lifted a finger, or raised a stone. The lie becomes a sedative for public outrage. A script to manage perception. In this case, the image of a competent police force triumphing over terror is too useful to pass up, especially when the reality is one of chronic failure.
But this isn’t new.
Our country’s history is littered with official falsehoods. The Civil War, with all its horrors, was packaged in July, 1967 by the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon as a “police action” aimed at “restoring order”. The pogroms, starvation, and genocide were hidden behind the wall of massive state propaganda. The truth bled quietly, off camera. In 1999, the return to civil rule was hailed as the dawn of a “New Nigeria”. But the killings in Odi, Bayelsa State, later that year revealed otherwise. The military razed the town, leaving hundreds dead. The government claimed it was responding to the killing of twelve soldiers. No commission of inquiry was held. No one was punished. When asked years later about the incident, President Obasanjo said, “The people of Odi invited the military”. He lied. The state lied. In 1991, between the end of the civil war and our country’s return to civilian rule, I was abducted by operatives of the State Security Service and held incommunicado at their Ikoyi detention facility. For weeks, the state flatly denied any knowledge of my whereabouts. The then Minister of Information, the late Chief Alex Akinyele, and his cabinet colleague, the late Professor Babs Fafunwa, repeatedly took to press briefings to insist, sometimes with theatrical conviction, that the government had no hand in my “disappearance” as President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS).
Here’s another lie. But who remembers?
In October 2020, the youth-led #EndSARS protests were crushed at the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos. Live bullets were fired into a peaceful crowd. Blood stained the road. The Nigerian Army initially denied even being present at the scene. Then, caught by evidence, admitted presence; but claimed they only fired blanks. Government officials spoke in circles, contradicting one another. The state swore no lives were lost. Meanwhile, families mourned in silence. CNN and Amnesty International exposed the state’s lies. The government responded by launching attacks, not on the killers, but on the truth-tellers. Witnesses like Obianuju Catherine Udeh, better known as DJ Switch, and Rinu Oduala, were forced into exile. In this long tradition of denial, what happened to the law students is not an exception. It is a continuation of the familiar pattern of lie-telling. The state’s cover-up. Or what my abductors during my long incarceration in 1991 glibly referred to as “the state’s cover story” – a phrase that still rings with a certain chill. It was as though the state had transformed itself into the editorial boardroom of a propaganda tabloid, where facts were doctored, and headlines manufactured to deflect public inquiry and defang public outrage. A newsroom, yes; but one staffed not by reporters of truth, but by functionaries skilled in the dark art of distortion. In that room, reality was edited, inconvenient truths redacted, and official narratives spun with the finesse of professional deceivers.
The question must be posed again: Why does the state lie?
It lies because it fears accountability. And because lies are cheaper than reforms. Easier than truth. The truth demands justice. It demands restitution. Lies cost nothing, except the people’s trust. The state lies because of its own decadence. There are no real consequences for lying. A police officer can announce a fake rescue. A governor can fabricate achievements. A minister can misrepresent statistics. No heads roll. No shame is felt. No apology is issued. In such a system, lying becomes a normalised administrative instinct. It lies because lies are often more palatable than the truth. The truth is messy. It complicates power. It reveals incompetence. It opens the door to scrutiny. The lie is clean like a whistle. Tidy. It reinforces the illusion of control. But the cost is enormous.
Each lie told by the state chips away at its moral legitimacy. Trust, once broken, is hard to rebuild. Citizens retreat into apathy or rage. Conspiracy thrives. Paranoia deepens. The distance between the ruler and the ruled becomes godo godo. Deep gullies. And when citizens no longer believe their government, even in times of truth, the consequences can be lethal. Imagine being the parent of one of the kidnapped students. You scrape together millions in ransom. You pray through sleepless nights. Then you see on the evening news that the police claim they rescued your child. No mention of your suffering. No mention of your sacrifice. Just a polished press release. A lie told over your lived experience. The spectre of falsehoods, which places the state at the centre of every story, even when it played no part, comes with the erasure of the sufferings of victims. The agency of families. The courage of survival. It is this spectre of falsehoods that turns citizens’ pains into weapons of state propaganda.
So what must be done?
First, citizens must learn to expose the lies that the state tells. “Unmask lies wherever they are told” was Amílcar Cabral’s enduring exhortation. A call to truth as resistance and to clarity as a revolutionary act. Refuse to be gaslighted. Insist on fact. Every time a false narrative is offered, it must be met with citizens’ testimonies and documentation. Second, citizens must build a culture of public memory. Our country forgets too quickly. Lies thrive in forgetfulness. The state counts on our fatigue. But we must remember. And remind. And record. Third, institutions must be reformed to uphold transparency. Press releases should not replace accountability. Oversight mechanisms must be strengthened. Internal checks enforced. Citizens must continue to hold power to account. A lying state can only persist when citizens become indifferent. To resist the lie is to defend our republic.
Some will argue that all states lie. That this is the nature of power. Perhaps. In functional democracies, lies are often exposed. Careers end. Elections are lost. Apologies are issued. In our country, lies are rewarded with promotions. Our citizens must change that. When the state lies, it desecrates its duty to the citizens. It abandons the ideals of public service. And it betrays the very law those kidnapped students set out to study and one day uphold. The future of a country cannot rest solely on the scaffolding of its constitution. It must be anchored in truth. Truth as a moral habit. Truth as a civic duty. Truth as a sacred covenant between the governors and the governed. For without truth, the constitution becomes a hollow text, and governance becomes the theatre of illusion. When the state lies, and lies without shame or consequence, it tells its citizens: your pain is irrelevant, your reality is disposable, and your trust is mine to abuse.
But truth, however buried, has a stubborn way of returning. Like the voices of David Obiora and Rev. Okafor. Clear. Undeniable. Refusing erasure.