Every January 15 since I can remember, Nigeria pauses.
We lower flags. We lay wreaths. We release white pigeons into the sky. We stand still while the bugle sounds. We speak solemn words about sacrifice, valour, and duty. We call it Armed Forces Celebration & Remembrance Day.
And we should.
But remembrance is not meant to be decorative. It is meant to be instructive. It is supposed to remind a nation what it costs to exist, and what it must protect to justify those costs.
So this year, a harder question presses against the ceremony.
What exactly are we remembering?
Nigeria’s Armed Forces Celebration & Remembrance Day honours soldiers who fought in the World Wars, the Nigerian Civil War, and the ongoing security operations. It marks the end of the Civil War in 1970. It recognises men and women who have stood between this nation and collapse. Those who died in forests, on highways, in villages, and on forgotten borders. Those who returned with wounds, visible and invisible.
Their sacrifice is real. Their courage is not in question. Our national consistency is.
I watch with awe when members of the armed forces are honoured on flights abroad. Passengers rise. Applause fills the cabin. Gratitude becomes communal. I pray for the day when that kind of reverence will feel natural in Nigeria. Not scripted. Not ceremonial but cultural…as these valiant soldiers risk their lives daily in their numbers defending and protecting the Nigerian people and their interests.
Also, because respect is not proven by wreaths. It is proven by policy. And policy, today, tells a more troubling story.
The Federal Government says, “We do not negotiate with bandits” and the state does not legitimise terror. They agree that security is non-negotiable. Yet in practice, we watch something else unfold.
In Katsina State, plans to free 70 captured terrorists were defended on the grounds of “repentance.” We are told they have turned a new leaf. We are told rehabilitation will replace accountability. Meanwhile, villages still mourn. Soldiers still patrol. Families still bury their own.
When the Minister of Defence warns against aiding and abetting terrorism, but state actions quietly contradict that warning, we are not confused. We are inconsistent. And inconsistency kills clarity.
Clarity is what soldiers rely on.
A nation that cannot decide whether violence is criminal or rehabilitative places its defenders in a moral quicksand. It asks them to fight enemies today who may be pardoned tomorrow. It sends them into danger while quietly preparing forgiveness for the danger itself.
What message does that send to those who wear the uniform?
What exactly are they defending?
Then, there is the unsettling spectacle of justice that feels selective. We have citizens sentenced to life for “incitement.” We have armed non-state actors offered amnesty for organised violence. The difference in treatment is not lost on the public. It is not lost on the troops. It erodes the moral architecture of law. There is also a troubling silence that hangs over our public space. A cleric like Sheikh Abubakar Gumi has repeatedly made statements on national television that many ordinary Nigerians would not dare to utter without expecting immediate questioning or consequence, yet he continues to move freely, uninvited by any formal inquiry.
At the same time, Nnamdi Kanu sits under a life sentence for incitement. The contrast reinforces a growing fear that justice in Nigeria is not simply about what is said or done, but about who says it and who is being judged. And when justice begins to look selective, the moral clarity soldiers rely on begins to blur.
Remembrance without coherence becomes hypocrisy.
We cannot honour patriotic sacrifice while hollowing out the meaning of service. We cannot celebrate defenders while blurring the definition of what they defend. We cannot say security matters and then quietly normalise arrangements that weaken it.
Armed Forces Celebration & Remembrance Day is not a holiday. It is a moral audit.
It asks whether the state still deserves the blood that has been spilt in its name.
It asks whether the laws still mean what they claim.
It asks whether courage is still being met with clarity.
To remember properly is not just to look back. It is to align forward.
It is time to decide that violence is not a bargaining chip. That accountability is not optional. The uniform is not ceremonial. The oath is still binding.
Until then, our white pigeons will rise. Our wreaths will fall. Our speeches will echo.
And our soldiers will continue to stand in spaces where the nation itself has not fully decided where it stands.
Armed Forces Celebration & Remembrance Day must become more than a ritual. It must become a reckoning.
Because remembrance without responsibility is not honour. It is a theatre.
*Mr Ukoh, an alumnus of the American University of Nigeria, Yola, and PhD student at Columbia University, writes from New York.
