What Is the Worth of a Nigerian Life? 

Twenty-two athletes and officials have tragically perished in a road accident on May 31, 2025, while returning from the National Sports Festival in Ogun State. In response, the Kano State government announced a 1 million naira compensation for each of the 31 affected families, including those mourning the dead and those whose loved ones are hospitalized. 

This seemingly generous compensation, however, raises troubling questions about the preventable tragedy. If the state had 1 million naira available per athlete, why wasn’t air travel arranged beforehand? At a range of 200 to 250k naira per trip, commercial flights would have cost far less than the compensation now being paid, instead, these promising young athletes were sent out on Nigeria’s notoriously dangerous roads in what appears to have been substandard transportation.

To put the athletes’ journey into perspective, a bus journey from Kano to Ogun State stretches over 13 grueling hours, while a flight takes merely two. These young athletes endured some of their final hours cramped into a bus, traveling to represent their state at one of Nigeria’s most prestigious sporting events.

The National Sports Festival, officially the Gateway Games, is hardly an obscure competition. Now in its 22nd edition since its inception in 2003, this annual event has been drawing over 10,000 athletes from across Nigeria to Ogun State for longer than most Gen Z Nigerians have been alive. This is a marquee event on Nigeria’s sporting calendar, one that commands national attention and participation.

Given the festival’s established prominence and scale, there can be no excuse for oversight or surprise. Governor of Ogun State, Prince Dapo Abiodun, President Tinubu, and countless other officials were fully aware of this event and the massive logistical operation it requires. The infrastructure, planning, and government machinery were all in place—except, it seems, for the most basic consideration of athlete safety during transit.

This tragedy has happened before. In 2016, eight secondary school students, half of the 16-member team representing Kano State at a national quiz competition, lost their lives in a motor accident along the Ibadan route. Afterward, Dr. Kabir Ibrahim, Kano State’s Commissioner for Health, promptly chartered an aircraft to transport the bodies home for burial. The same government that deemed air travel too expensive for living, breathing students suddenly found the resources for an emergency flight once those students were corpses. Eight brilliant young minds were extinguished not by fate, but by administrative negligence, leaders who calculated the cost of safety and found it wanting.

Nine years have passed since that preventable accident, yet here we stand witnessing an almost identical tragedy unfold. The script remains unchanged: young Nigerians traveling to represent their state, dangerous road conditions, government officials scrambling with post-tragedy resources they claimed were unavailable beforehand. Only, the casualties have multiplied, from eight students to twenty-two athletes and officials.

The reality is that 1 million naira, however well-intentioned, is a hollow gesture in today’s economic climate. With Nigeria’s inflation rate, this compensation will likely erode within months, leaving grieving families with nothing but memories and unpaid bills. But even if the money lasted, is 1 million naira the market value of a human life? Of dreams cut short? Of potential unrealized?

In Nigeria’s governance structure, accountability is almost impossible. Transport funds may have been allocated, approved in meetings, and signed off, only to vanish into corruption’s black hole. The money earmarked for safe passage could have been diverted, embezzled, or simply “repurposed” through the creative accounting that has become Nigeria’s unofficial national sport.

If we cannot do anything at all, at least let us honor the memory of these 22 athletes who were victims of a system that values their sacrifice only after they can no longer benefit from it. They join countless other Nigerians who have perished in service to a nation that mourns them briefly, then forgets them entirely. There is no inspiring call to action or uplifting message to conclude this tragedy. The truth is that these deaths were entirely preventable, not acts of God, but failures of governance. When Nigerians reflexively declare “it’s God’s plan,” they become complicit in a culture that absolves human negligence.

Change remains possible. Future competitions will come, more young Nigerians will represent their states, and their safety will once again depend on officials who must choose between doing right and doing cheap. These 22 athletes deserved better than becoming statistics in Nigeria’s endless catalog of preventable tragedies. Their lives were priceless.