Nigerian Author Launches Play to Rally Communities vs Crime

A former Nigerian senator is turning to theater to spark a movement against the armed groups terrorizing his country's rural communities.

Shehu Sani launched "The Village and the Vigilante" in Abuja this week, a stage play written to inspire villagers facing bandits and terrorists to stand together and defend their homes. The longtime rights activist says Nigerians can no longer wait for government alone to protect them.

For over 15 years, armed groups have ravaged large areas of northern Nigeria, killing thousands, kidnapping for ransom, burning villages and displacing millions. States like Zamfara, Katsina, and Kaduna have seen entire communities lose their homes and sense of security.

Sani estimates the total number of bandits and terrorists terrorizing communities at around 5,000 people in a nation of 230 million. That dramatic disparity, he argues, shows the power of organized communities to push back against violence when they work together.

His play maps out the failures that leave rural people vulnerable: traditional leaders who won't act, security forces stretched too thin, and neighbors who've lost trust in each other. Set in a typical northern Nigerian village, it shows how breakdown in coordination creates opportunities for armed groups to take control.

"This was not our lives 20 to 30 years ago," Sani said at the launch. He wrote the play after watching his region suffer through more than a decade of military operations that haven't stopped the violence.

The Ripple Effect

Sani also launched a second book warning young Nigerians about the deadly reality of illegal migration to Europe. "The Perilous Path to Europe: The Sahara Odyssey" challenges what he calls the dangerous illusion that prosperity waits across the Mediterranean.

Thousands of young Nigerians pay human traffickers to cross the Sahara Desert to Libya, where many spend months or years trapped in exploitation and abuse. Those who survive often face deadly sea crossings to reach Europe, only to end up in overcrowded camps.

"There is no dream for you to realize in Europe," Sani told the audience. "Your dream can be realized here in your country." He pointed to China and India as proof that nations develop when their youth stay home to build rather than flee.

Literary reviewer Salamatu Sule praised both works for confronting Nigeria's structural failures head on. She said Sani writes as someone who knows the country's political reality intimately, raising uncomfortable questions about corruption and governance collapse that drive both violence and migration.

The launch represents one activist's creative approach to problems that have resisted traditional solutions for over a decade.