Transitioning from Somtochukwu Tribute to Policy Blueprint – OpEd

The tragic death of Somtochukwu “Sommie” Maduagwu, a 29-year-old journalist and lawyer with Nigeria’s Arise Television, is a chilling reminder of the fragility of safety in societies where the state has abdicated its fundamental duty to protect.

On the night of 29 September 2025, armed robbers stormed her Abuja residence. In the ensuing chaos, Sommie leapt from the third floor in a desperate bid to escape. She was rushed to a nearby hospital but did not survive her injuries. According to police accounts, security guards at the complex were overpowered and one was shot.

Her death is more than a personal tragedy. It  is a national indictment. We can call it an unmasking of the structural insecurities that ordinary Nigerians face daily. But for the global community, it also represents a familiar pattern seen across developing societies: the convergence of weak policing, unregulated private security, inadequate urban design, and deficient emergency care. All of these turn avoidable danger into irreversible loss.

The Anatomy of Failure

1. Security as an unkept promise

The attack exposes Nigeria’s chronic under-investment in policing, intelligence gathering, and rapid response systems. Without predictive or preventive capacity, law enforcement remains reactive, often arriving only after damage has been done. Reactivism of the highest order is the hallmark of Nigeria’s security. 

2. Privatization of public safety

Residential security in Nigeria is largely outsourced to private guards who are often poorly trained, under-equipped, and disconnected from state protection infrastructure. This “outsourced security model” is a hallmark of unequal societies, where the wealthy buy relative safety while the state retreats from its duty of care.

3. Fear as a silent killer

Sommie’s fatal leap was not the act of recklessness but of terror. A  natural reaction under siege. The tragedy underlines the importance of safety literacy: residents knowing how to respond under threat, buildings designed to minimize panic fatalities, and societies investing in psychological as well as physical safety.

4. A failing emergency response chain

Reports of delays and confusion in medical evacuation point to another systemic breakdown. In many Nigerian cities, ambulances are scarce, paramedics are untrained where available, and hospitals lack trauma protocols. Thus, even survivable injuries too often prove fatal.

5. Journalists as endangered citizens

Though Sommie was attacked at home, her profession is not irrelevant to the conversation. In environments of pervasive insecurity and weak press freedom, journalists face heightened risk, both for their work and within their communities. The erosion of safety for those who amplify truth erodes democracy itself.

6. Justice deferred as justice denied

Nigeria’s history of unsolved violent crimes reinforces a culture of impunity. Investigations fade, families grieve in silence, and the cycle of fear endures. This, perhaps, is the deepest wound, that each loss becomes another data point in a long list of unresolved tragedies.

Lessons Beyond Borders

The tragedy of Somtochukwu Maduagwu holds universal resonance. Across Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia, citizens live within what development scholars describe as “security poverty”. This is the condition where exposure to violence and absence of state protection deepen social inequality and civic despair.

Internationally, Sommie’s death should prompt reflection on three intersecting realities:

• That human security is the foundation of development.

No nation can credibly pursue economic growth or democratic deepening while citizens live in fear of violence. Be it violence from criminals, insurgents, or the failures of their own institutions.

• That public safety is not a private luxury.

When security is commodified; available only to those who can afford gates, guards, or gadgets; it ceases to be a public good and becomes an emblem of systemic failure.

• That women and journalists embody society’s moral barometer.

A nation that cannot keep safe those who give it voice, especially women who have fought to claim space in public discourse, has already begun to silence itself.

Changing the Narrative

From Grief to Governance

Nigeria’s government, and indeed any other Government facing similar urban insecurity, can draw from global best practices to prevent future tragedies. The following policy measures, adapted from international experience, are both achievable and urgent. Some are even low-hanging fruits that require only common sense and creativity:

• Establish community policing hubs with rapid-response capability.

Decentralized command structures, integrated with local intelligence networks, have significantly reduced response times in countries like South Africa (through “sector policing”), the United Kingdom (via “neighbourhood policing teams”), and in Belgium (via “Wijkagenten”). Nigeria’s police reforms should emulate such models, empowering officers who know their communities.

• Regulate and professionalize private security.

Kenya’s Private Security Regulatory Authority and South Africa’s PSIRA system demonstrate that when private guards are licensed, trained, and networked with public police, community safety improves. Nigeria needs a similar legal framework with clear accountability standards.

• Incorporate “safety by design” into urban and residential planning.

Building codes should mandate multiple exits, emergency stairwells, reinforced escape routes, panic alarms, and safe refuge areas. In Europe and Japan, such design thinking has dramatically reduced fatalities during emergencies. Nigerian authorities can revise national building codes to include such non-negotiable safety standards.

• Strengthen emergency medical systems through trauma-care networks.

Countries like India and Kenya have implemented tiered trauma care systems, where emergency response units, paramedics, and hospitals operate in synchronized “golden-hour” networks. Nigeria’s health authorities must invest in pre-hospital care, trauma centers, and paramedic training.

• Create violent-crime task forces with civilian oversight.

Drawing from U.S. “fusion centers” and Colombian victim-support models, Nigeria could establish independent investigative units for violent crimes, with transparent reporting and measurable timelines.

• Institutionalize journalist-protection mechanisms.

Mexico and Colombia both operate (albeit imperfectly) formal programs that assess risk and provide protection for journalists. Nigeria’s Ministry of Information, in collaboration with the media and civil society, can create a national register of journalists at risk, backed by safety training and emergency support funding.

• Promote civic preparedness and safety literacy.

Public awareness campaigns, digital emergency apps, and residential safety drills are standard practice in countries like Japan and Singapore. They drastically improve community resilience. Nigerian cities can integrate these tools into urban governance and local education systems.

• Establish independent civilian review boards for policing.

Transparency mechanisms such as the UK’s Independent Office for Police Conduct or New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board have strengthened accountability. Nigeria’s citizens deserve similar instruments for monitoring police responsiveness and misconduct.

A Call to Honour the Dead by Protecting the Living

Somtochukwu Maduagwu’s death is not merely a Nigerian story. It is a human story. The narrative of a young professional whose life was extinguished not by natural disaster or war, but by the preventable failures of governance. The moral test for any nation lies not in the eloquence of its condolences and the competition to share her story on the social media, but in the endurance of its reforms. To honour Sommie’s memory is to translate mourning into movement. It is to rebuild public safety as the bedrock of dignity and development.

In doing so, Nigeria can send a message to the world: that it has learned the hardest of lessons. That no democracy thrives where fear governs, and no journalist should have to die to remind us that safety is a right, not a privilege.