By Tony Okafor
The 2025 festive season will be remembered not for fear or hurried journeys, but for joy, free movement, family reunions, and community celebrations.
For once, Anambra State experienced a Yuletide that felt genuinely like Christmas.
By every fair assessment, it was one of the most peaceful Christmas seasons the state has witnessed in recent years.
Most striking was the near-total absence of kidnapping and violent crime during the period under review.
In previous Yuletides, returnees and well-to-do citizens had often been targets of abduction, forcing many families to spend the season in anxiety and confinement.
This year, however, communities that had become synonymous with deserted roads and fear came alive again.
Even areas previously regarded as strongholds of the dreaded “unknown gunmen” saw residents return home without apprehension to celebrate the birth of Christ and the end of a difficult year.
For this unusual calm, credit must be given where it is due. First, we thank the kidnappers and violent actors who chose—whether voluntarily or under pressure—to sheath their swords.
That decision, regardless of its motivation, saved lives, restored confidence, and allowed ordinary people to breathe freely, if only for a season.
It is an encouraging indication that the message of peace and coexistence, preached by various stakeholders, is beginning to resonate.
We also acknowledge the sustained efforts of the Anambra State Government and the security agencies, particularly the Orutugu-led Anambra State Police Command, whose strategic presence, intelligence-driven operations, and reassurance to citizens clearly played a role in maintaining calm.
Security, after all, works best when deterrence and dialogue complement each other.
However, this editorial goes beyond gratitude; it is a call to conscience. The Christmas truce must not end with the decorations.
Peace should not be seasonal. The right to life, movement, and livelihood of Ndi Anambra should not depend on festive calendars.
What was achieved in December can, and should, be sustained throughout the year in the interest of peaceful coexistence and economic revival.
As the state approaches the electioneering prelude to the general elections early next year, politicians must also take responsibility for sustaining peace.
They should play by the rules, conduct issue-based campaigns, and resist the temptation to dramatise or politicise insecurity in order to make cheap political capital.
Under no circumstance should political actors recruit, arm, or patronise hoodlums for selfish ends. Insecurity must never again be weaponised as a strategy for electoral advantage, as the ultimate victims are innocent citizens and the state itself.
For those who have chosen the path of violence, the Yuletide calm offered a powerful lesson: Anambra thrives without fear. Markets flourish, roads are busy, hospitality businesses boom, and social bonds are strengthened when guns are silent.
The most honourable and enduring way to withdraw from crime is by voluntary decision—by choosing life over destruction, dignity over infamy.
In this regard, the state government must continue to keep the door of amnesty open to repentant criminals who genuinely renounce violence.
Amnesty should be structured, transparent, and tied to rehabilitation, skills acquisition, and reintegration into society, so that those who drop their arms are not pushed back into crime by neglect or stigma.
At the same time, law enforcement agencies should sustain pressure on those who refuse peace, ensuring that crime does not regroup after the festivities.
Traditional rulers, town unions, religious leaders, and youth organisations also have a role to play.
Community-based vigilance, moral persuasion, and early warning systems can help prevent a relapse into violence.
Parents must speak to their children; communities must reclaim their values; leaders must lead by example.
The peaceful Yuletide of 2025 proved one simple truth: Anambra is not condemned to violence. Peace is possible. Let this not be remembered as a lucky break, but as a turning point.
The greatest gift to Ndi Anambra would be to make this Christmas calm permanent—so that gratitude gives way to normalcy, and peace becomes our daily reality, not an exception.
Deo gratia.
