Introduction
The effort to achieve an end to Nigeria’s long-standing insecurity problem through military intervention, moral suasion, and other approaches has engaged leaders and ordinary citizens of the country for more than a decade now. While most desire that the crisis be addressed solely through a military approach, given that bandits and terrorists are armed with weaponry more advanced and sophisticated than those of our security agencies and remain gruesome in their operations, others posit that an amalgam of military and non-kinetic measures offers a far better strategy.
Supporters of this latter position point out that for all the years the country has been fighting insurgency, the problem has not abated, standing in stark contrast to repeated government claims that insurgents have been so technically defeated and degraded that they now focus merely on soft targets. Nevertheless, perhaps to propitiate this “non-kinetic” group, the government has been incorporating non-military approaches into its solution mix since the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari.
This course of action was informed by the popular belief that every war is eventually and inevitably resolved at the negotiation table. By application of this salve, when the cessation of hostilities is secured in negotiation and peace is gained, the desired status quo ante bellum will eventually be regained in affected areas and among the parties involved.
Bandits, Go and Sin No More
In perceiving this non-military approach, which is being implemented informally without an enabling policy known to the public, we have seen the emergence of an unexplained and troubling trend. This is the release of kidnapping victims to government officials by kidnappers, supposedly without payment of the huge ransoms earlier demanded and without kidnappers being arrested or engaged in gun battles. While victim releases are a welcome development, many citizens, news anchors, and analysts have been shouting themselves hoarse over the government’s failure to apprehend kidnappers after rescue operations.
Though this procedure is faulty—forfeiting the expected commitment of bandits to “go and sin no more” that a proper negotiation table after arrest would secure—people are beginning to see this as an aspect of the non-military resolution. We would be more at ease when authorities explain this methodology and its expected benefits.
The more overt aspect of this novel non-military solution, however, is the de-radicalisation and reintegration of repentant bandits into society. Following batches rehabilitated during Buhari’s tenure, the Katsina State government in 2025 released repentant bandits, pledging business support packages, cattle, and industrial tools as part of a social integration programme to prevent relapse into violence, alongside 152 houses for displaced households (Daily Post, 15/09/25).
In January 2026, Katsina State government approved the release of 70 suspected bandits standing trial (ICIR, 15/01/26). Similarly, in April 2026, the Federal Government announced that 744 former terrorists would be reintegrated into society following graduation from its De-radicalisation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration Camp under Operation Safe Corridor, in line with the United Nations conventions (Vanguard, 17/04/26). These former bandits received psychosocial support, vocational training, religious reorientation, and civic education.
While reports indicate that some earlier beneficiaries returned to terrorist activities, rehabilitation aims to transform insurgents into productive citizens: much like Saul, the persecutor, becoming Apostle Paul, the propagator and protector of Christianity. Yet, equity remains sorely missing. As reggae star Peter Tosh sang in Equal Rights: “Everyone is crying out for peace, yes, none is crying out for justice; I don’t want no peace, I need equal rights and justice”. Equal rights and justice must be extended to suffering-in-silence victims of terrorism across Nigeria.
Villains Getting Richer, Victims Getting Poorer
For simplicity, assume two parties on the issue of insecurity: bandits who kill, maim, rape, rob, and kidnap, and victims who suffer the effects of these unprovoked atrocities. Bandits are aggressors whose reasons for wanton destruction are nebulous, inexplicable, and inexcusable. They assemble, procure sophisticated arms, deploy vehicles, and attack sleeping communities to terrorise, maim, kill, and kidnap, before burning their victims’ homes to the ground. They cart away spoils and demand exorbitant ransoms beyond victims’ capacities to pay. Relatives thereafter raise funds through savings, asset sales, borrowing, and crowdfunding. Surfeit with spoils of war and ransom payments, bandits grow wealthy, fund lavish weddings, go on pilgrimages, and take honorary titles. If caught by our hard-working military, they claim repentance and undergo de-radicalisation, their graduation celebrated in aso-ebi and fanfare like victorious Roman generals of old. From this tradition, terrorists would seem to win, heads or tails.
Victims, on the other hand, are left stripped of dignity and earthly possessions. With habitations made desolate, they become life-less, spouse-less, parent-less, children-less, homeless, property-less, business-less, church-less, mosque-less, and future-less. Hours or days after attacks, following media outrage, government officials arrive in a blazing glory of sirens and flashing lights to empathise. Yet, what follows is always a formulaic template response designed during Buhari’s presidency: “the President/government condemns, in the strongest terms, the dastardly attack and killing of innocent citizens”; “there should be no reprisal attacks against the terrorists”; and “the perpetrators will be brought to book”.
Officials then leave without verifiable consequential action. Once security personnel depart, bare-stripped victims move to internally displaced persons (IDP) camps lacking basic amenities, scrambling for food and second-hand items donated by government, charitable entities, or those chasing political clout or social media following.
While spin doctors would attempt to gaslight citizens regarding gradations and shades of defeat of terrorism, they cannot explain why IDP populations explode while victims’ home communities remain desolate or occupied by their conquerors as bandit attacks soar. Some terrorism survivors, at varying states of physical or emotional infirmity, have been in IDP camps for years, enduring trauma, deprivation of basic essentials and, for female IDPs, gender and sexual violence. Their children might never attend good schools, and their childhood memories, when they become adults, would be ones of growing up in IDP camps, scrambling for food.
While many have no hope of ever leaving the camps, though numbed by emotional pain, they do not claim victimhood; they have not formed Associations of Terror Victims/IDP-Camp Inmates; or demonstrated for restoration of their homes, possessions or dignity. Stoically refraining from speaking for themselves, their voices have been the concern shown by the many Rev Dachomos, public affairs analysts, and the persistent, vociferous posers of Arise News’ anchor-cum-philanthropist, Rufai Oseni, and others.
Tragically, government has apparently not articulated a roadmap to rehabilitate these survivors, provide them with vocational training, celebrate them in aso-ebi, and relocate them to their home communities. This contrasting picture of the respective positions of the villains and victims of insecurity remains the defining paradox of the insecurity problem in Nigeria.
Talking Numbers
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 2024 Report, Nigeria hosted 127,000 refugees and asylum-seekers from 41 countries, 3.5 million internally displaced persons, and 50,000 returnees. A Daily Trust report of May 2026 indicated the IDP population grew to 3.7 million by March 2026, across 1,646 to 3,900 displacement sites.
Regarding assistance, the World Bank approved $300 million for Nigeria under the Solutions for the Internally Displaced and Host Communities Project (SOLID), aiming to assist 7.4 million people to achieve economic resilience. While UNHCR praises Nigeria’s favourable protection environment for foreign refugees, our charity must manifest equally at home. If government is executing a similar programme for Nigeria’s IDPs, we are not seeing a level of commitment worth commending.
Balancing of Accounts
In accounting, the foundational rule dictates that for an account to balance, every entry on one side must be matched by a corresponding value on the other. Therefore, after rehabilitating repentant bandits, victims – who are far more deserving – must be rehabilitated and reintegrated into their native home communities. This is the only way justice can be served and lasting peace engendered. In the Biblical story of the prodigal son, the elder brother complained bitterly about the sumptuous reception given to his returning brother, despite having suffered no personal deprivation.
We can imagine how terror victims feel with preferential treatment accorded to repentant terrorists. By ignoring victims’ parlous conditions during bandit rehabilitation celebrations, the state unwittingly re-victimises them, implying crime is more profitable than law-abiding victimhood. Just as the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme enabled oil companies to safely resume production, rehabilitating bandits must be matched by empowering victims to return home once communities are made secure.
De-victimisation, Rehabilitation and Re-Assimilation of Victims
Considering the harrowing violence followed by unbearable camp hardships that direct victims have endured, it is only just and equitable that their rehabilitation and reintegration into home communities is the next milestone. What is required is beyond government sporadic, tokenistic gestures; beyond government “donation” measures; and beyond victims’ comfort in IDP camps, because the camps are neither their destiny nor the future of their children. We need a deliberate, comprehensive, nationwide Federal Government policy, empowered by the National Assembly, and financed and implemented jointly by Federal and State Governments, United Nations agencies, and willing philanthropic organisations, overseen by civil society groups.
To avoid rushed action that could precipitate re-terrorisation, the programme should follow the establishment of State Police proposed by President Bola Tinubu. With State Police established and every community having police personnel just a whistle sound away, supported by federal police and military layers, IDPs will return to better-policed, safer communities. By the way, the momentum on the State Police proposal should be re-energised to fast-track its implementation.
The rehabilitation framework for victims must cover six essential pillars:
- Provision of Security: Reintegration preceded by deployment of State Police – with Federal Police and the military as buffers – especially given recent escalation of bandit attacks across the country.
- Psychosocial Support: Professional support for victims manifesting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
- Rebuilding Communities: Rebuilding of houses, markets, places of worship, and workshops, destroyed in attacks, through direct execution or financial assistance to victims.
- Infrastructure Restoration: Access roads, bridges, healthcare facilities, schools, water, telecommunications, and power infrastructure must be rebuilt and re-staffed.
- Vocational Training: Children who came of age in IDP camps without trades, alongside inactive adult artisans, require comprehensive training and retraining.
- Seed Money to Restart: Returnees restarting from zero will need financial grants and low-interest loans to pursue vocations.
Rehabilitating repentant bandits may seem disconcerting and irreconcilable to citizens, given the tragedy inflicted upon communities. However, if this non-kinetic measure hastens an end to terrorism, the sacrifice is worthwhile. Nevertheless, beneficiaries must be monitored to prevent relapse into crime. Most importantly, the de-victimisation and rehabilitation of terror victims must be launched without further delay to end their prolonged anguish in camps and show them light at the end of this long, tortuous tunnel.
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