Abstract It’s apposite to accord credit score the place it’s genuinely merited. Due to this fact, on the precise challenge of confronting and searching for to defeat terrorism – which is objectively outlined on this essay as deploying horrendously vicious methods to attain acknowledged or unspoken politicaland/or spiritual aims–due credit score should be accorded gallant Nigerian troops and repair personnel; risking life and limb every day to safeguard lives amidst the hydra-headed jihadist onslaught, traversing the nation.
Conversely, opprobrium should be heaped upon the spivs, turncoats, and saboteurs, facilitating terrorism which has upended normalcy and sanity within the nation. Most significantly, efficient legal prosecution should be robustly pursued in opposition to terrorists and all their sponsors, and convictions, the place secured, enforced. Afterall, it’s solely pointless claiming to combat terrorism absent consistency, braveness, dedication, management and political will.
Along with that kinetic mannequin, is the need for socio-economic improvement to have interaction disillusioned youths who will not be educated, employed, nor in expert, and subsequently, a prepared magnet for recruitment by terrorists.
DiscourseNothing within the foregoing is rocket science. As a result of the primary obligation of any accountable authorities anyplace on the earth is the safety, security and welfare of its residents. Exactly, encapsulated in part 14 (1), (2)(b) of the Structure of the Federal republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) viz: “Nigeria shall be a State based mostly on the ideas of democracy and social justice…the safety and welfare of the folks shall be the first objective of presidency.”
Nonetheless, the Nigerian authorities, regardless of heroic endeavours, can’t be stated to have defeated terrorism by any logical evaluation in any respect.
Virtually nowhere is secure due to terrorism and the worry thereof. How, and for what period, can any society perform within the recurrent hellish dystopia? How are Nigerian farmers, youngsters, pensioners, males, ladies, who’re being attacked and maimed every day, and compelled to flee their properties and ancestral farmlands meant to earn a livelihood?
The excusatory and lame competition by some that the terrorists are non-Nigerians is, in itself, an admission of negligence that Nigeria’s immigration safety equipment is so porous as to doubly facilitate the entry of unlawful immigrants on one depend. And even worse, on the opposite depend, that these individuals have the audacity to stay on Nigerian soil, killing and maiming Nigerians at will, in lively live performance with native terrorists and jihadists, is an especially critical indictment onthe nation’s safety equipment. It plainly defies purpose!
Too many gory examples reinforce the purpose. In line with Reality Nigeria.com, Nigeria’s army is struggling to include resurgent terrorism by a mixture of Fulani terrorists, Boko Haram, Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), Lakurawa et al. It reported that Fulani terrorists attacked a number of communities in Kajuru County, Kaduna State, on January 1, 2025, displacing 1000’s of Christians and killing many others; along with the kidnapping of a minimum of 46 individuals together with ladies and kids by Fulani terrorists, in Gana city, Zamfara State on January 5, 2025.
The publication, quoting safety sources, affirmed that the target of those terrorists is to intimidate Nigeria’s Federal Authorities, and to compel native folks to undergo terrorists’ diktat and management!
Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters on January 8, 2025, confirmed that six gallant troops misplaced their lives in a ferocious skirmish, which resulted within the deaths of greater than 34 terrorists in Sabon Gari village, Damboa, Borno State on January 4, 2025.
The Worldwide centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) on April 20, 2025, confirmed that 56 individuals have been killed in terrorist assaults in Ukum and Emblem, native authorities areas of Benue State by means of April 17/18, 2025; quoting the State Governor, Hyacinth Alia, who described the carnage thus “there isn’t a room for anybody to sleep with their two eyes closed. That is actual struggle. We all know our enemies. That is the one state that we have now. I mourn with you at this very pathetic and unhappy second in your lives.”
Solomon Jatau was a Christian, from Northern Nigeria. He held a doctorate diploma in Marine Providers from the Nigerian Defence Academy in addition to a foundational diploma in Biochemistry, and was a Deputy Director, on the Nigerian Institute of Transport Expertise, Zaria. Jatau attended Federal Authorities Faculty Warri.
Someday round September 2023, he was kidnapped in Kaduna, inside his dwelling precinct, by armed terrorists. Solomon was brutally assaulted and tortured by these terrorists who later demanded a ransom operating to tens of tens of millions of naira. The determine was negotiated downwards, and with the help of his household, associates and college mates, the agreed quantity was paid. Jatau was launched a number of weeks later. Nonetheless, owing to the horrific expertise he suffered within the palms of the terrorists, Solomon died, in early November 2023 or thereabout.
On Pentecost Sunday, June 5, 2022, St. Francis Xavier’s Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria, was attacked by terrorists. The ghastly assault left over 50 individuals, together with younger youngsters, useless and several other extra with various levels of harm! Additionally in 2022, ISWAP attacked the Kuje Jail within the Federal Capital Territory through which an unknown variety of prisoners escaped; in addition to asserting duty for assaults on police in Niger State, barely 30 kilometres from the Federal Capital Territory.
In June 2019, Mrs Funke Olakunri, a Nigerian Barrister, and Mr Matthew Ogunbiyi have been murdered alongside Benin-Ore-Sagamu Freeway; by suspected Fulani terrorist herdsmen, in line with The Vanguard of July 13, 2019. Muhammed Usman, Mazaje Lawal, and Adamu Adamu have been arrested, prosecuted, founding responsible of homicide, kidnapping and sentenced to demise by hanging!
These heinous crimes, and the manifestly apparent incapacity of the established safety providers, catalysed the institution of the South Western Nigerian safety drive, “Amotekun”; underneath the instigation of the instant previous Governor of Ondo State, late Arakunrin Olurotimi Odunayo Akeredolu, and different progressive governors; paradoxically, in opposition to vehement opposition of the Buhari-led Administration, however the truth that the dramatis personae have been members of the incumbent political occasion, All Progressives Congress (APC)!
The U.S. Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence established that: on June 16, 2022, a Boko Haram (BH) assault on the Police Headquarters, Abuja claimed six lives in what’s believed to have been Nigeria’s first suicide bombing; on November 5, 2011, BH coordinated a number of assaults in Damaturu and environs claiming over 150 lives; on January 20, 2012, BH assaults killed over 185 individuals in Kano; on Could 7, 2014, BH assaults killed over 150 villagers in Gamboru, Ngala Village.
Hitherto, by means of April 14/15, 2014, 276 most Christian feminine college students and likewise Muslim college students aged between 16 and 18 have been kidnapped by BH from Authorities Secondary Faculty, Chibok, Borno state. While among the ladies have been launched following in depth negotiations in alternate for ransom funds and the discharge of BH terrorists, others have been forcibly married to militants, many presumed useless, nonetheless, as of April 2024, greater than 80 of the ladies are nonetheless lacking.
To be continued subsequent week.
Ojumu is the Principal Associate at Balliol Myers LP, a agency of authorized practitioners and technique consultants in Lagos, Nigeria, writer of The Dynamic Intersections of Economics, International Relations, Jurisprudence and Nationwide Growth (2023).
