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Compensation After #EndSARS: What Scripture Says on Justice

The Federal Capital Territory Administration in Abuja announced a committee to collate destroyed vehicles and properties and to pay compensation after hoodlums attacked #EndSARS protesters and car marts, burning cars and injuring civilians, a report filed on January 1, 2026 by Informavores names the destruction and a promise to make people whole.

That announcement brings up an obvious, hard question: when government pays money for burned cars and wrecked businesses, what kind of justice is actually being served?

Scripture speaks into this mess

Two short verses from the prophets put the question plainly.

Micah 6:8

He’s already told you, people, what’s good and what he wants from you: do what’s right, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.

Micah is answering a people who thought ritual would cover over social wrongs. In context he insists that right worship shows itself in how a community treats one another, especially the vulnerable.

[Isaiah 1:17] (we're still translating this passage)

Isaiah speaks to a nation whose religious life had become hollow because public life tolerated abuse. The call is active: pursue justice, don’t wait for it to happen on its own.

Those two lines help us make a distinction between two different goods a compensation program might supply. One is material: getting a burned car replaced, a shop rebuilt. The other is moral and civic: holding the people who attacked others accountable, repairing relationships, and changing the conditions that let violence erupt.

The Old Testament actually has concrete rules about repayment that illuminate what “making whole” meant in an ancient legal imagination.

Leviticus 6:4-5

if they do any of these things and realize their guilt, they must admit what they did,

Leviticus applies restitution as more than a cold calculation. Restitution admits a wrong, restores the victim, and imposes a tangible cost so the community can trust again.

That’s why calls for compensation make sense. Money and repair matter. But Scripture doesn’t stop there. It also assumes authorities have a role in preventing and responding to violence.

[Romans 13:4] (we're still translating this passage)

Paul’s line recognizes a public responsibility: government exists, in part, to restrain violence and to enforce justice. When leaders promise compensation, the promise should be paired with a commitment to clear, impartial investigation and, where appropriate, prosecution.

Finally, Jesus presses an ethic of repair between people, not just institutions.

[Matthew 5:23-24] (we're still translating this passage)

Jesus is not denying the value of public ritual; he is saying that reconciliation matters more than ceremony. True repair means naming harms, seeking the harmed out, and restoring relationships where possible.

So what does that mean for Abuja, for the people whose cars were burned, and for everyone watching? A few practical, honest steps follow from the Bible’s logic:

  • Insist on transparent accounting. If the FCT will compensate victims, the process should be public: who is eligible, how losses are verified, and when payments will be made. Transparency reduces rumor and builds trust, which Scripture repeatedly values.
  • Pair restitution with accountability. Restitution without investigation risks letting the same pattern repeat. The state’s responsibility is to identify perpetrators, protect witnesses, and prosecute where law has been broken, not only to pay victims.
  • Support community repair. Compensation can fund small projects that restore local economies and relationships: a repaired market stall, mediation sessions between affected groups, legal clinics for victims. Practical repair heals more than a bank balance.
  • Advocate for the vulnerable. The prophets name orphans and widows as those the system must protect. Ask whether the poorest and least connected are being remembered in compensation plans.

If you want to act now, look for the FCT’s public criteria, ask local representatives for timelines, and support neighborhood groups helping victims. Pray and speak for justice that is both restorative and accountable: money that repairs, processes that deter, and community work that rebuilds trust. That combination is what scripture means by doing justice and loving mercy while walking humbly before God.

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