There are things an enemy can do to a people.
And there are things a people do to themselves.
The second is always worse.
Some spaces were never meant to host our battles.
They were created so a people could gather, remember, and recognise themselves. When such spaces are violated, the damage goes beyond disorder. Meaning is stripped away.
Lately, we have watched places meant for reverence lose their restraint. Churches now echo with alignments that have nothing to do with faith. Funerals are no longer moments of collective grief but stages for rivalry. And now, even a cultural gathering meant to affirm identity has been overtaken by noise that had little to do with heritage.
What troubles me is not only what happened but what it says about who we are becoming.
What happened in Gboko was not just embarrassing. It was painful. The kind of pain that makes you look away, not because you did not see, but because you saw too clearly.
Before the eyes of onlookers, near and far.
Before friends, foes, and neutral observers.
Before our children.
Before history.
We exposed more than a gathering gone wrong. We exposed fractures we often pretend do not exist.
A gathering meant to remind us of who we are as Tiv people became a place of fear. A place where there was stabbing. Where tear gas was released. Where people ran, not in celebration, but for safety. Where culture gave way to chaos.
Tiv Day.
And people were injured.
Tiv Day.
And security forces released tear gas.
Tiv Day.
And fear replaced pride.
If this does not shame us, then nothing will.
For years, there was no Tiv Day at home. People murmured. People asked quietly. While celebrations were held abroad, we wondered why the land itself was ignored. Why Tivland was good enough for speeches elsewhere but not for home.
When it finally returned, many hoped.
Maybe this would remind us of who we are.
Maybe it would pull us back together.
Instead, it broke our hearts.
Gboko did not feel like a gathering of brothers. It felt like a contest. Voices competing. Grudges aired. Old bitterness carried onto a stage that should have been sacred. What was meant to unite became a place to settle scores.
Nothing was said for the Tiv man who no longer farms in peace.
Nothing for the woman chased from her village.
Nothing for families sleeping in camps, forgotten by those who speak loudest in our name.
The ordinary Tiv person was invisible.
That silence was insultive.
What should have been a gathering of remembrance became a theatre of ego. What should have been a celebration of identity became a display of disunity.
The black and white was worn, but it felt empty. Cloth without character is just fabric. Culture without restraint is just noise. When leaders forget this, the people pay the price.
More troubling was the absence of moral authority. Institutions meant to steady the gathering did not rise above the tension. By failing to draw clear boundaries, they allowed confusion to flourish. When custodians of culture blend into the noise instead of guiding it, the people are left exposed.
We like to speak of marginalisation.
We like to point fingers outward.
But how do we confront external forces when we are busy tearing ourselves apart? How do we demand respect when we parade our disunity so shamelessly?
The truth is hard and uncomfortable, but it must be faced. The Tiv problem is no longer only external. It is internal. It is pride. It is ego. It is the refusal to put the tribe above the self.
The greatest enemy of the Tiv people is no longer outside our borders. It lives among us. It thrives in our politics, our gatherings, our silence, and our applause for mediocrity and malice.
That is why we struggle.
That is why we scatter easily.
That is why we shout but are not heard.
A house divided does not fall because someone pushed it. It collapses because the walls no longer hold each other.
As 2027 draws closer, something feels wrong. Not because enemies are gathering, but because lessons are being ignored. Because warnings are treated as insults. Because shame no longer slows us down. If nothing changes, we will enter that season divided, distracted, and weakened, unable to speak with one voice or negotiate our future with dignity.
This Tiv Day was not ours.
It belonged to a few.
The rest of us watched with a lump in our throats.
One day, a Tiv child will ask what happened to us. Why a proud people began to shrink. Why our voice softened. Why others spoke for us.
And the answer will be painful but simple.
We fought ourselves.
We embarrassed ourselves.
We weakened ourselves.
Gboko was a shame. Yes.
But more than that, it was a mirror.
What we do after seeing ourselves will decide everything.
I was fortunate to witness a Tiv Day in Gboko many years ago, long before this one. I was a teenager then. I may not remember every detail vividly, but I remember how it made me feel. I ushered that event.
I remember the field filled with colour and order. Culture unfolded without shouting. I saw kwagh-hir for the first time, standing in wonder as stories came alive in wood, cloth, voice, and movement. I saw Anchanakupa, the measured dignity of Tiv dance, confident and unhurried. I remember drums speaking before mouths did. I remember elders sitting calmly, watching, guiding with presence alone.
I remember pride. Quiet pride. The kind that did not need to announce itself.
That day, I felt Tiv. Not angry. Not defensive. Just proud to belong to a people who knew who they were and carried it with grace.
That is why what we witnessed recently hurts so deeply.
Because we have been better.
Because we have known beauty.
Because we have gathered before without fear, without chaos, without shame.
We did not lose that because the world took it from us.
We are losing it because we are forgetting ourselves.
And that is the hardest truth to carry.
Stephanie Sewuese Shaakaa sent in this piece from Makurdi.
