The House Approves War Power Resolution. Congress to Tehran: “Don't Worry, We've Got Your Back”

 

Congress just sent Tehran a dangerous signal: when America's enemies push harder, some politicians want America to pull back. If Iran wins that gamble, the next crisis could be far worse. While Iran's rulers chant "Death to America," Washington politicians are fighting Washington. America's enemies are watching, smiling, and calculating their next move. If Tehran sees weakness in Washington, America may be inviting the very disaster these politicians claim they are trying to prevent. Appeasement has a long and ugly history.

The House vote was 215-208. Democrats and a handful of Republicans joined forces to pass a war powers resolution aimed at limiting President Donald Trump's ability to continue military action against Iran. The moment the vote passed, cheers reportedly erupted in the chamber.

Cheers? That image sticks in my head like a bad song.

America is confronting a rogue  regime that has spent nearly half a century chanting "Death to America," funding anti-American proxies, arming militants, threatening U.S. allies, and pursuing nuclear capabilities that have terrified governments from Jerusalem to Riyadh. Yet some politicians in Washington looked at that regime and apparently decided that the real danger was not Tehran but the White House.

I keep asking myself a simple question. What exactly are these people smoking?

Iran's ruling clerics have never hidden who they are. They are not shy. They are not subtle. They do not send Hallmark cards to America every Christmas. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the regime has built an entire political identity around hostility toward the United States. The slogan "Death to America" did not fall from the sky. It became a ritual.

Yet every time pressure is applied to Tehran, somebody in Washington rushes onto the field waving a white flag and yelling, "Wait! Let's protect the feelings of the Mullahs!"

If political irony were oil, America would never need the Strait of Hormuz. Supporters of the resolution insist that they are defending the Constitution. Fine. Congress has constitutional authority regarding war. Nobody disputes that. But let's stop pretending that timing does not matter. Imagine a police officer wrestling an armed criminal to the ground and somebody runs over shouting, "Before you handcuff him, let's have a procedural debate!" That is what this looks like to many Americans.

The defenders of this vote say they oppose war. Wonderful. Most Americans oppose unnecessary war. I oppose unnecessary war. The graves at Arlington are already crowded enough. Iraq taught painful lessons. Afghanistan taught painful lessons. Nobody with a functioning brain wants endless wars.

But opposing war and helping America's enemies are two different things. The distinction matters. Iran is not Norway. Iran is not New Zealand. Iran is not a misunderstood exchange student who simply needs a hug and a scholarship.

This is the same regime that has supported Hezbollah for decades. Hezbollah has been responsible for attacks that killed Americans and targeted American interests. This is the same regime that has backed Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel killed approximately 1,200 people and helped ignite a regional firestorm. This is the same regime that American intelligence agencies and multiple administrations have watched closely because of concerns over nuclear ambitions.

Those are facts. Not talking points. Not campaign slogans.

Facts.

So when I hear politicians arguing that America should tie its own hands while confronting Tehran, I naturally wonder whether they understand how this sounds outside the Beltway bubble.

Imagine being an Iranian hardliner sitting in Tehran. You turn on the television. You watch members of Congress fighting the White House. You watch lawmakers trying to restrict military options. You watch Americans publicly signaling division. Do you panic? Or do you smile? I suspect the smiles in Tehran were wider than the smiles in the House chamber.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a point that deserves serious attention. He warned that Tehran could interpret congressional restrictions as evidence that America's hands are tied. That is not some wild theory. That is how adversaries think. They constantly look for weakness, hesitation, division, and confusion.

History is full of examples. The dictators of the 1930s constantly tested democratic governments. Every sign of hesitation invited another demand. Every sign of weakness encouraged another gamble. A shark does not stop swimming because it smells blood. It swims faster. No, Iran is not Nazi Germany. History is not a photocopier. But the lesson remains. Aggressive regimes often interpret restraint as opportunity.

Then there is the nuclear question. This is where the entire debate becomes even more bizarre. Do these politicians want Iran to possess nuclear weapons? I assume the answer is no. Then what is the plan? Seriously. What is the plan? Hope that the Ayatollahs wake up one morning and decide they no longer want nuclear capabilities? Hope that decades of anti-American ideology suddenly vanish? Hope that Hamas, Hezbollah, and every other Iranian-backed militant group decide to become birdwatching clubs?

Hope is not a strategy. Hope is what people do when they forgot to study for an exam. Nations require something stronger than hope. They require deterrence.

The economic arguments being used by supporters of the resolution are equally strange. They point to higher gasoline prices. Fair enough. Americans hate high gasoline prices. I hate high gasoline prices. But what helped create those pressures? The Strait of Hormuz. Iran's ability to threaten shipping routes. Regional instability. In other words, Tehran helps create the fire, and some politicians want America to put away the fire hose.

That is not strategy. That is performance art. At times, Washington resembles a circus where the clowns have seized control of the tent and are now lecturing the audience about fire safety while juggling gasoline cans.

The most troubling part of all this is the message being sent to America's friends and enemies alike. America's allies watch these votes. Iran watches these votes. China watches these votes. Russia watches these votes. Terrorist organizations watch these votes. Everyone watches. And what they see is a superpower arguing with itself while a hostile regime enjoys a front-row seat.

The supporters of this resolution may genuinely believe they are protecting democracy. They may genuinely believe they are preventing another costly conflict. I am willing to grant them that. But good intentions do not magically produce good outcomes. The road to disaster has always had excellent marketing.

At the end of the day, I do not believe these politicians literally support the Ayatoallahs. I do not believe they are secretly chanting "Death to America." I do not believe they are carrying Hamas membership cards in their wallets.

What I do believe is that they owe Americans an answer to a brutally simple question: If the blood-thirsty rulers of Tehran are celebrating your actions, if America's enemies are benefiting from your message, if the regime that has spent decades cursing America sees advantage in what you are doing, then why exactly are you doing it? Because from where I sit, it looks less like standing up to President Trump and more like handing the Mullahs a gift basket, a thank-you card, and a coupon for future concessions.

And that is a question every voter should remember the next time these politicians start talking about patriotism.

 

This article stands on its own, but some readers may also enjoy the titles in my “Brief BookSeries”. Read it here on Google Play or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief Book Series.

 

China’s Solar Kings Are Going Broke: Not Even Bombs in Iran Can Save Them

 

China conquered the solar world, then flooded it with too many panels. Now bankruptcies are spreading, jobs are vanishing, and not even war in the Middle East can stop the collapse. Simply put, the world's solar superpower is choking on its own success. Factories keep producing, demand is weakening, and a brutal reckoning is racing toward China's green-energy empire.

When American bombs started falling on Iran, plenty of people expected China’s solar bosses to start counting money. Oil prices jumped. Energy markets trembled. Governments suddenly remembered that depending on unstable regions for energy can be a dangerous game. Common sense seemed to point in one direction: more demand for solar panels.

But common sense and reality often sleep in different bedrooms.

China’s solar industry is not celebrating. It is bleeding. The Gulf war may have boosted solar exports for a moment, but a man with cancer does not become healthy because somebody gives him an aspirin. The disease remains. China’s solar sector has become a victim of its own greed, its own success, and its own inability to stop building factories that the world no longer needs.

For years, China’s solar industry was the darling of investors, politicians, and environmental activists. It was presented as the future. It was the poster child of green capitalism. It was supposed to prove that industrial policy could conquer the world.

In one sense, it worked. China now produces more than 80% of the world's solar panels. It dominates supply chains from silicon processing to finished modules. It crushed competitors in Europe. It battered rivals in America. It overwhelmed manufacturers across Asia. The dragon ate the entire buffet. Now it is suffering indigestion.

The problem is brutally simple. China can manufacture more than 1,000 gigawatts of solar panels every year. The entire world installed roughly 600 gigawatts in 2025. Think about that for a moment. China’s factories can produce almost twice as much as the global market currently absorbs. That is not a business strategy. That is industrial insanity.

For years, local governments threw money around like drunken sailors on shore leave. Cheap loans flowed freely. Cheap land was handed out. Subsidies rained from the sky. Every province wanted its own solar champion. Every executive wanted another factory. Every investor wanted another growth story. Nobody wanted to ask the uncomfortable question. What happens when everybody builds and nobody buys?

Now the answer is arriving with the subtlety of a baseball bat. Bankruptcies are spreading across the industry. More than 40 Chinese solar firms have already been bankrupted, acquired, or pushed off stock exchanges since 2024. Thousands of workers have been shown the door. Roughly one-third of the workforce at China’s five biggest solar companies has disappeared through layoffs.

That is not what victory looks like. That is what a firing squad looks like.

The cruel joke is that China’s biggest customer has always been China itself. For decades, the country's enormous appetite for electricity helped absorb the flood of solar panels pouring from factories. But even that engine is beginning to stall.

China installed solar power so rapidly that many power grids can no longer cope. Across deserts, mountains, and rooftops, dark panels stretch toward the horizon like an army occupying conquered territory. The problem is not producing electricity. The problem is finding somewhere for it to go. Solar panels produce power when the sun shines. Human beings, unfortunately, insist on using electricity at night as well.

Coal plants can be switched on and off. Solar panels cannot negotiate with the sunset. The result is waste on a staggering scale. During the first two months of the year, about 9% of China's solar-generated electricity simply went unused. A year earlier, the figure was 6%. The trend is moving in exactly the wrong direction. Imagine owning a bakery where nearly 1 out of every 10 loaves gets thrown into a dumpster. Then imagine investors calling that a growth industry. That is the absurdity facing solar manufacturers today.

The industry's defenders insist that batteries will solve everything. Maybe they will. Battery costs continue falling. Energy storage technology continues improving. New transmission lines are being built. But reality has a schedule of its own. Factories can be built in months. Power infrastructure often takes years.

Solar companies are running out of time.

Then there is the problem nobody likes discussing publicly: solar panels have become a commodity. One looks much like another. Any technological breakthrough gets copied faster than gossip at a family reunion. Companies slash prices to gain market share. Rivals slash them further. Everybody races to the bottom. The result has been one of the nastiest price wars in industrial history. Many panels are now selling below production costs. Imagine walking into a store where every product loses money every time it leaves the shelf. That is essentially the business model facing large sections of China's solar industry today.

Yet the bad news does not stop there. The rest of the world has started fighting back. For years, politicians in Washington, Brussels, and New Delhi watched Chinese manufacturers flood global markets with dirt-cheap products. Local competitors collapsed. Factories closed. Jobs disappeared. Eventually governments responded the way governments always respond when domestic industries are threatened.

They reached for tariffs. The United States tightened restrictions on Chinese solar imports. Europe became increasingly suspicious of Chinese dominance in critical infrastructure. India erected barriers to protect its own manufacturers.

This should surprise nobody. A country cannot spend years crushing competitors and then act shocked when those competitors seek protection. If you spend years kicking the hornet's nest, do not complain when the hornets finally fly out.

China's solar industry is discovering that economic domination comes with political consequences. That is why the Gulf war changes far less than many people think. Yes, higher energy prices make renewable energy more attractive. Yes, some countries in Africa and Southeast Asia are buying more Chinese solar panels. Yes, exporters have enjoyed a temporary boost. But a temporary boost cannot fix a permanent imbalance.

The industry's real problem is not demand. It is oversupply. The world simply does not need as many panels as Chinese factories can produce. That is why the current crisis feels different from previous downturns. In earlier slumps, demand eventually caught up. This time, analysts are openly questioning whether the world will ever absorb all the capacity China has built.

That is a frightening thought. An industry constructed on endless growth has suddenly collided with the possibility that growth may no longer be endless. No executive likes hearing that story. No investor likes hearing it either.

The only realistic lifeline may come from technology. New perovskite solar cells could eventually push efficiency above 30%, compared with roughly 22% to 24% for many conventional panels today. If those technologies become commercially viable, they could create a new investment cycle and generate fresh demand.

But technological revolutions do not arrive because executives need them. They arrive when science is ready. And science does not care about quarterly earnings reports.

So here we are. American bombs are falling in the Middle East. Oil markets are shaking. Energy security has become a global obsession once again. Under normal circumstances, this should be the moment when China's solar giants celebrate. Instead, many are fighting for survival. That tells us everything we need to know.

The biggest threat to China's solar empire is not Iran. It is not America. It is not Europe. It is not tariffs. The biggest threat is the mountain of solar panels China built for a world that no longer needs that many. The industry's leaders spent years believing sunlight would never set on their empire. Now they are learning a hard lesson that every boom eventually learns.

When everybody is digging for gold, the first people to go broke are often the ones selling the shovels.

 

This article stands on its own, but some readers may also enjoy the titles in my “Brief BookSeries”. Read it here on Google Play or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief Book Series.

 

Only 6 Years Left: The Coming Social Security Cliff and the Politicians Watching It Happen

In just 6 years, Social Security could hit a financial wall. The question is no longer whether a reckoning is coming, but who will pay for it. America once rescued Social Security through bipartisan compromise. Today’s political warfare may leave the fund to collapse first and force a crisis later. 

America’s giant safety net is tearing apart. In 1940, more than 150 workers supported each Social Security retiree. Today, fewer than 3 workers support each beneficiary. Longer lives and lower birth rates have flipped the math, turning a once-overflowing fund into a shrinking reservoir.

The countdown clock is already ticking. The trust fund peaked at $2.8 trillion in 2017 and has since lost about $400 billion. If Congress does nothing, the fund is projected to run dry around 2032–2033, triggering automatic benefit cuts of about 23% for retirees.

America solved this crisis before—but in a different political age. In 1983, Republicans and Democrats joined forces to rescue Social Security by raising the retirement age and expanding taxes. Today, congressional polarization is at its highest level in modern history, making a similar deal far harder.

The fix is surprisingly small, but the politics are explosive. Some experts say modest changes—such as raising the payroll tax from 12.4% to 12.6% and gradually increasing retirement ages for higher earners—could stabilize the system. Yet 71% of Americans want Social Security spending increased, not trimmed.

If leaders keep kicking the can down the road, taxpayers may get the bill. America already ran a budget deficit of nearly 7% of GDP in 2025. Without reform, Washington may rely on even more borrowing, leaving younger generations to carry debts created by promises made decades earlier. A stitch in time saves nine, but Washington often waits until the house is on fire before reaching for the bucket.

If you’re looking for something different to read, some of the titles in my “Brief Book Series” is available on Google Play Books. You can also read them here on Google Play, or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief Book Series.

Is America a Miracle or a Mistake? The 250-Year Showdown

America's 250th birthday is not a celebration of perfection. It is a celebration of progress. A nation that ended slavery, expanded voting rights, and dismantled segregation deserves reflection, gratitude, and pride. In plain terms, nations do not become stronger by hating their history. They become stronger by learning from it. America's 250th birthday honors both the lessons and the progress.

As America approaches its 250th birthday in 2026, many people want a celebration while others want a national reckoning. The fight over how to commemorate the milestone reveals a country still arguing over its identity, history, and future.

America’s greatest achievement is its ability to correct its own mistakes. The nation once tolerated slavery, denied women the vote, and enforced segregation. Yet slavery was abolished, women gained voting rights in 1920, and legal segregation was dismantled after 1954. The story is not perfection; it is reform.

Progress came through conflict, not consensus. The founders argued. Abolitionists fought slavery. Suffragists fought for women’s rights. Civil rights leaders challenged segregation. Every major expansion of freedom emerged from fierce national battles. America's history is a story of struggle producing change.

The American Dream still attracts millions.  If America was so flawed, why do millions of people want to come here every year? Despite constant criticism, the United States remains one of the world's top destinations for immigrants. Every year, millions seek visas, residency, or citizenship. Actions speak louder than slogans. People vote with their feet, and many still choose America.

The 250th Celebration is really a debate about patriotism. The extreme left liberals and the ‘entitlement junkies’  sees only America's failures and hesitates to celebrate. The conservative and the moderates sees a nation that continuously improved itself and believes the anniversary deserves pride. The controversy is not really about fireworks or parades—it is about what America means after 250 years.

This article stands on its own, but some readers may also enjoy the titles in my “Brief Book Series”. Read it here on Google Play or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief BookSeries.

SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic: The $4 Trillion AI Bubble Nobody Wants to Talk About

 Wall Street is throwing a massive party for SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. The problem? The last great IPO parties in 2000 and 2021 ended with investors counting bruises instead of profits. The bottom line: America is betting huge on AI. If confidence cracks, trillions in market value could wobble, turning today's rocket launch into tomorrow's financial emergency landing.

Wall Street is about to eat the biggest IPO meal in history. A $4 trillion convoy led by SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic is heading toward the stock market. Investors are cheering, but history shows giant market feasts can end badly. The 2000 dot-com boom and the 2021 IPO surge were followed by painful market declines.

The first day frenzy may hide a long-term trap. A small-town investor, whose name is Nancy,  sees SpaceX debut at a $1.75 trillion valuation and rushes in. Three years later, reality bites. Research by Jay Ritter found IPOs from 1980–2024 underperformed the broader market by 20 percentage points on average. Expensive IPOs did even worse.

AI has become the market’s new single point of failure. A decade ago, housing helped trigger the 2008 crisis. Today, AI may be carrying similar systemic importance. AI-related firms already account for about 40% of the S&P 500. If confidence in AI cracks, millions of retirement accounts could feel the shock.

The real avalanche comes after the celebration. The IPO launch is only the opening scene. SpaceX plans to release more shares over time as lockups expire. What begins as a 4% public float could eventually unleash trillions in additional stock. More shares chasing the same dollars can put pressure on prices.

Tech giants are switching from stock scarcity to stock flooding. For years, companies such as Apple and Meta Platforms boosted stock prices through buybacks. Now AI spending is swallowing cash, buybacks are slowing, and companies are raising capital. The story may shift from “too few shares” to “too many shares,” a reversal that has often cooled bull markets in the past.

This article stands on its own, but some readers may also enjoy the titles in my “Brief Book Series”. Read it here on Google Play or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief BookSeries.

Kidnapped Futures: How Nigeria’s Children Became Prey While Politicians Play Politics

 Billions flow into Security Votes, yet children still disappear into terrorist camps. If the money is secured but the children are not, somebody owes Nigerians an answer.

On Nigeria’s Children’s Day, May 27,  2026, Nigerian politicians delivered speeches about the future while 88 kidnapped children and teachers remained trapped in forests. The celebration exposed a painful truth: for many Nigerian children, the future is not a dream—it is a hostage situation.

Nigeria’s State Governors receive Security Votes monies to help fight insecurity, yet kidnappers continue raiding schools and villages. Parents are asking a brutal question: if billions are spent on security every year, why do terrorists still keep winning?

Since the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls, school abductions have become a recurring nightmare. Nigeria’s children leave home to learn mathematics and science but sometimes end up bargaining for survival in terrorist camps deep inside forests.

Nigeria’s state governors often appears more energized by party battles, embezzling public funds, and power struggles than by rescuing kidnapped children. The house is burning, but the landlords are fighting over who gets the master bedroom.

A nation is judged by how it treats its weakest people. When children are kidnapped, teachers are beheaded, schools are unsafe, and millions remain out of school, leaders must answer one uncomfortable question: if the children are not safe, what exactly has been secured?

This article stands on its own, but some readers may also enjoy the titles in my “Brief Book Series”. Read it here on Google Play or in Barnes & Noble bookstore: Brief BookSeries.

Dear Jesus, Why Do Nigeria’s State Governors Guard Security Votes Better Than They Guard Schoolchildren?

 Nigeria's children are being kidnapped from classrooms while politicians fight over power. If Security Votes are working, why are the kidnappers winning? In plain terms, while state governors secure political alliances, kidnappers secure hostages. One side keeps delivering results.

If Jesus had been around and taking questions from concerned Nigerians, I know exactly what I would have asked Him.

“Lord, what do You think about the governors of Nigeria’s states and their lack of interest in stopping kidnapping and the general insecurity destroying their states? What do You think about leaders who seem better at protecting Security Votes than protecting schoolchildren?”

I suspect that question would make many governors shift uneasily in their seats.

Children’s Day came on May 27, 2026. It should have been a day of joy. Instead, it felt like a nation was celebrating with one hand while wiping away tears with the other. Across Nigeria, children marched, sang songs, and listened to speeches about being the leaders of tomorrow. Yet 88 children and teachers abducted on May 15 in Oyo and Borno states remained in captivity. Their tomorrow had been replaced by terror.

In Borno State, Boko Haram terrorists stormed Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira/Uba and abducted 42 pupils and students. In Oyo State, gunmen attacked schools in Oriire Local Government Area and abducted 46 children and teachers, including toddlers. Assistant headmaster Joel Adesiyan was killed. Mathematics teacher Michael Oyedokun was kidnapped and later beheaded.

Beheaded.

That single word should have stopped political activities across Nigeria. It should have triggered emergency meetings in every governor’s office. It should have produced sleepless nights among public officials whose first responsibility is the protection of life.

Instead, many politicians continued exactly where they left off: fighting over party structures, plotting defections, calculating election strategies, boasting at political gatherings, and engaging in the endless soap opera that passes for politics in Nigeria.

A child disappears into a forest. A politician disappears into a political meeting. One disappearance is a tragedy. The other is a routine expense charged to the taxpayer.

That is the bitter reality.

The most painful part is that governors cannot claim ignorance. They know what is happening. Parents know what is happening. Teachers know what is happening. Terrorists certainly know what is happening. The only thing that seems missing is urgency.

For years, governors have received what are known as Security Votes. These are public funds allocated for security-related purposes. Unlike many government expenditures, these funds often operate with limited public scrutiny and limited transparency. Nigerians are repeatedly told that these funds are necessary because governors need flexibility to respond quickly to security threats.

Fair enough.

But if Security Votes exist to improve security, then ordinary Nigerians have every right to ask a simple question. Where are the results? If billions of naira have been spent on security while terrorists continue kidnapping children from schools, attacking villages, collecting ransom, and controlling forests, then something is seriously wrong. Either the money is not being looted by the state governors, or the entire system is failing spectacularly.

Parents do not measure security through budget allocations. Parents measure security by whether their children return home from school alive.

Since the Chibok abduction of 276 schoolgirls in April 2014, Nigeria has been trapped in a recurring nightmare. According to estimates from Amnesty International and Save the Children, about 1,700 schoolchildren have been abducted in mass school kidnappings since Chibok. Leah Sharibu, abducted during the Dapchi school attack in February 2018, remains in captivity years later.

Think about that. An entire generation of Nigerian children has grown up knowing that schools can become hunting grounds. In many countries, parents worry about grades. In Nigeria, parents increasingly worry about whether their children will return home. That is not merely a security problem.

That is a collapse of confidence.

The tragedy grows even larger when one examines the broader condition of Nigerian children. The country has about 18.3 million out-of-school children, one of the highest figures anywhere in the world. Many parents simply do not trust the system enough to risk sending their children into danger. Others cannot afford education because economic hardship has crushed family finances.

Many public schools look like abandoned relics. Classrooms are crumbling. Teachers are poorly paid. Learning materials are scarce. Some children still sit on bare floors. Others study under trees. Yet politicians continue behaving as though the greatest emergency facing Nigeria is who controls a political party headquarters.

A roof is collapsing, but the landlords are arguing over who owns the key.

The health situation is no less disturbing. Nigeria's under-five mortality rate remains among the highest globally. Millions of children face malnutrition. UNICEF estimates that about 2 million Nigerian children suffer from Severe Acute Malnutrition, while roughly 32 percent of children under five are stunted.

Meanwhile, food inflation is punishing families daily. A crate of eggs that sold for about ₦900 in 2023 now sells for around ₦6,000. Many children who should be reading books are selling goods on highways and street corners to help their families survive.

Yet Nigeria's political elite continue to live in a different country from the one experienced by ordinary citizens. Their children rarely attend the vulnerable public schools that terrorists target. They rarely travel along dangerous rural roads where kidnappers operate. They rarely go to bed fearing abduction. Many study abroad or attend expensive private schools protected by armed guards, high walls, surveillance systems, and layers of security. The contrast is impossible to miss. One Nigeria moves in bulletproof convoys while another moves in fear. One Nigeria spends its days discussing political alliances and succession plans while another searches forests for kidnapped children. One Nigeria enjoys government protection as a birthright, while another wakes up each morning praying not to become the next victim splashed across newspaper headlines. For the powerful, insecurity is often a topic of discussion; for the poor, it is a daily visitor at the door.

Even more disturbing is the impression that some politicians appear more passionate about securing political power than securing human lives. Political meetings are attended. Political strategies are drafted. Political rivalries are pursued with remarkable energy. Yet when children disappear into forests, government responses often seem painfully slow.

The message ordinary Nigerians receive is both devastating and infuriating: the political class often treats insecurity as a public relations problem to be managed with speeches rather than a national emergency demanding relentless action. History has a cruel habit of stripping away political noise and exposing what truly mattered. It will not remember how many party congresses a governor controlled, how many defections he engineered, or how many rivals he outmaneuvered. It will remember whether children could attend school without being kidnapped, whether teachers could do their jobs without fear of execution, and whether those entrusted with power acted decisively when innocent lives hung in the balance. When the final scorecard is written, security—not political scheming—is what separates leadership from failure.

That is why Children’s Day 2026 felt less like a celebration and more like an indictment. While politicians traded speeches, 88 kidnapped children and teachers remained in captivity. While officials spoke about the future, terrorists were holding the future at gunpoint.

If Jesus were answering questions today, I would ask Him whether leaders who cannot protect children have fulfilled their most basic duty. I would ask Him whether governments that spend billions on security but cannot secure schools are truly serving their people. And I would ask Him what He thinks about a political system in which Security Votes often seem more secure than the children they are supposed to protect.

Because at the end of the day, roads, airports, party primaries, political coalitions, and campaign speeches mean very little to a mother whose child has been dragged into a forest by terrorists. For her, there is only one issue that matters.

Bring the children home.

Until that happens, every Children’s Day speech risks sounding like a cruel joke, and every Nigerian governor claiming success must answer a question that grows louder with every kidnapping: If the children are not safe, exactly what has been secured?

 

For readers interested in a separate line of thought, the titles in my “Brief Book Series” are available on Barnes & Noble and in Google Play. Read them here on Google Play: Brief Book Series.