Today, as we mark World Humanitarian Day, we are reminded to look beyond statistics and recognise the people behind them. Statistics help us understand the scale of a problem, but humanity begins when we see the person inside the number: the mother standing beside what used to be her home, the principal who left for school and did not return for 56 days, the farmer who escaped an attack but cannot return to his land, and the child still waiting for relief that has already been announced.
My message for World Humanitarian Day 2026 is Humanity Through Empathy. To me, empathy is the discipline of understanding how a decision, action or failure will affect another person's life—and allowing that understanding to shape what we do. It is more than pity. It is responsibility.
Case One: When a family loses the place it calls home
In 2024, more than 200 families were reportedly displaced when homes in Nuwalege, along Abuja's Airport Road, were demolished for the expansion of land connected to the Presidential Air Fleet. One affected resident, Folashade Olatunde, a mother of five, said the demolition separated her family and that no compensation had been paid. We may read her account in two minutes, but a family cannot recover in two minutes. A home can hold years of savings, schoolbooks, work equipment, documents and memories. When it disappears, the loss reaches into education, health, employment and family stability.
Amnesty International later reported that forced evictions in and around the FCT had rendered more than 20,000 families homeless. Residents affected by other exercises have also alleged inadequate notice, consultation, compensation or resettlement. Such claims deserve careful investigation because no one should discover the full force of public policy only when a bulldozer reaches the door.
Yet empathy must work in both directions. Buildings on road corridors, floodplains or waterways can endanger an entire community, especially when drains are blocked or stop-work notices are ignored. Recent rains have left Jabi Under Bridge, Utako, Wuse, Berger Junction and Aminu Kano Crescent waterlogged. In defending enforcement around Jabi Lake and elsewhere, FCT Minister Nyesom Wike has referred to the Abuja Master Plan, land-use compliance, security and the rule of law. Those responsibilities are real, but law and empathy should not be treated as enemies.
Empathetic governance intervenes before an unsafe settlement becomes a community of thousands. It gives verifiable notice, hears legitimate claims, provides a meaningful review process and protects vulnerable people during enforcement. Where compensation, relocation or temporary shelter is legally required, it should come before displacement. Citizens also have responsibilities: residents, landowners, builders and businesses must verify land, obey planning rules, keep waterways clear and consider how private choices affect public safety. Humanity through empathy means enforcing the law without treating people as collateral damage—and exercising our rights without creating danger for others.
The cost of starting again in Abuja
After displacement comes an immediate question: where can the family afford to live? A self-contained apartment in Kubwa has been reported at ₦600,000 to ₦800,000, while asking prices in more central locations have reached ₦1.5 million to ₦2 million. One Utako resident reported an increase from ₦700,000 to ₦1.2 million—more than 70 per cent—while other published cases describe increases of 30 per cent and 100 per cent.
Agency, legal or agreement, caution and service charges are usually stated separately and can add as much as 40 per cent in some transactions. These charges may represent genuine services, deposits or shared maintenance, but paying them at once—on top of rent that has risen much faster than income—can place another home beyond reach.
Landlords also face higher construction, financing and maintenance costs, and some depend on rent as their primary income. Empathy does not deny that reality. It asks for reasonable increases, adequate notice, properly maintained accommodation, clear charges and a transition that does not suddenly uproot a family. Tenants, in turn, should honour agreed rent and respect the property. Housing becomes a humanitarian concern when working families can no longer afford the communities that support their jobs, schools and daily lives.
Case Two: The journey to school that lasted 56 days
On 15 May 2026, Rachael Alamu went to work as the principal of Community High School in Ahoro-Esinele, Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State. After 28 years in education and personal sacrifices for a distant rural posting, she could not have known that she would not see her husband again for 56 days.
Gunmen abducted Mrs Alamu alongside pupils and teachers. The captives were driven away in her vehicle, taken deeper into the forest and repeatedly moved whenever their abductors believed security forces were approaching. She later described children being beaten into silence and night-time journeys of three or four hours through difficult terrain. Two teachers, Michael Oyedokun and John Olaleye, were killed during the ordeal.
Mrs Alamu and the surviving captives were eventually rescued through a coordinated security operation, followed by promised medical and psychosocial support. That response deserves recognition, but empathy requires us to hold another truth beside the success: teachers and children still spent 56 days in captivity.
The National Bureau of Statistics' 2024 household survey estimated approximately 2.23 million kidnapping incidents between May 2023 and April 2024 and about ₦2.23 trillion paid in ransom. These are survey estimates—not a police register or a count of unique victims—but they point to widespread fear, debt and trauma. We should not wait until the missing child bears our surname before treating kidnapping as an emergency. Empathy at the security level means prevention, credible intelligence, protected schools and rural communities, rapid rescue, clear communication with families, rehabilitation and accountability.
Case Three: When violence empties a community
In February 2026, armed attackers entered Woro and neighbouring Nuku in Kwara State. They killed residents, burned homes and shops, abducted others and forced survivors to flee. One Woro farmer, Iliyaus Ibrahim, lost his brother; his pregnant sister-in-law and her two children were taken. Families crossed into other states and, according to humanitarian reporting, some fled as far as the Republic of Benin.
For a farmer, leaving home can mean losing the next harvest; for a child, the school term; for an elderly person, the only community they have known. By June, Woro's village head said more than 80 per cent of displaced residents had returned, but returning is not the same as recovering. Homes, farms and schools must be restored, trauma treated and security made credible enough for people to sleep again.
The pattern extends across Nigeria. Boko Haram and other armed groups have displaced millions in the North-East, while repeated attacks and farmer–herder violence have uprooted communities in Benue and Plateau. Host communities then share already limited water, clinics, schools, food and employment with new arrivals. Empathy must include both displaced people and the communities receiving them.
Sometimes that empathy is practical: showing a newly arrived family the nearest clinic, helping a child enter school, explaining a transport route, assisting with documentation or listening before deciding what support is needed. Someone who needs help today may have been entirely self-sufficient yesterday. Vulnerability is a condition people experience; it is not their identity.
Relief must complete the journey
The final distance in a humanitarian response is often the most important: the distance between an announcement and the person who needs help. Relief may sit in a warehouse while insecurity makes the road unsafe. Funding may arrive too late. People outside formal camps may be missing from registers. Weak data, administrative costs and poor coordination can all separate what was approved from what reached the community.
In Dikwa, Borno State, reporting in 2025 documented the experience of Yagana Bulama, a farmer displaced by Boko Haram. One of her infant twins died amid severe malnutrition as cuts weakened food and health programmes. In January 2026, the World Food Programme warned that more than one million people in North-East Nigeria could lose emergency food and nutrition assistance, while European humanitarian reporting estimated that insecurity kept 400,000 to 500,000 people beyond the reach of aid workers.
Humanitarian response cannot be measured only by what was budgeted, announced or dispatched. We must ask whether support reached people on time, reflected what they needed, included the most vulnerable and produced a verifiable result. Relief has not succeeded until it reaches the person.
Empathy must become a system
Across these stories, empathy means seeing consequences early enough to change them. For government, it means enforcing policy without treating citizens as disposable. For security institutions, it means protection and urgent response. For landlords, agents and tenants, it means balancing legitimate interests with fairness and human limits. For humanitarian organisations, it means listening, reaching the last mile and accounting for every intervention. For communities, it means helping displaced families recover without making them feel like burdens.
For every one of us, empathy means refusing to dismiss suffering simply because it has not reached our own household. It asks three questions: Who will carry the cost of this decision? What can prevent avoidable harm? What responsibility belongs to me?
This is what Humanity Through Empathy requires: see the person, understand the impact, accept responsibility and act.
OEF's place in this response
Oluwafemi Ebenezer Foundation began with a simple conviction: when hardship is visible, our response should be practical. Feed Someone started as a response to hunger, but OEF's humanitarian vision is broader. It embraces vulnerable people and underserved communities affected by displacement, violence, disaster, poor health, interrupted learning and lack of opportunity.
OEF is not claiming to answer every problem raised here. We do not regulate housing, enforce planning laws, conduct security operations or manage Nigeria's emergency response. Our responsibility is to work honestly within our capacity through practical relief, dignity-focused care, community support, learning opportunities, credible referrals and partnerships. Support for people affected by displacement and sudden emergencies is one area we intend to pursue responsibly as our capacity grows.
We cannot heal every part of the world at once, but we can refuse indifference, start where we are and remain accountable for what we do. Humanity without empathy can become performance; empathy without action can remain only a feeling. Real humanitarianism connects the two. That is Humanity Through Empathy.
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