By Nasiru Jagaba
Anyone who sympathizes with bandits and terrorists deserves to be treated as what they truly are: terrorists by association and collaborators by choice.
There is no moral grey area here.
Terrorists did not sympathize with crying children begging for mercy; they intensified their cruelty against them. They murdered parents in front of their children without hesitation. They subjected women and young girls to sexual violence in the presence of their families. They turned kidnapping into an industry, forcing households to sell ancestral land and family homes just to raise ransom. They destroyed entire communities, burning homes and livelihoods, leaving millions displaced and homeless. Even pregnant women were not spared, as brutality reached its most inhuman extremes.
This is the record of terrorism in Nigeria.
It is not theoretical.
It is ongoing.
As this article is being written, over 80 Nigerians are reportedly still being held in kidnappers’ camps in Kauru Local Government Area of Kaduna State alone. These are real people, real families, real suffering.
Against this backdrop, anyone who minimizes, rationalizes, excuses, or sanitizes this violence is not a neutral actor. They are not peace brokers. They are enablers of terror.
Yet some public figures and self-styled intellectuals continue to cloak mass murder in euphemisms. They refer to terrorists as “our fighters” (mayakanmu). They criticize counterterrorism strikes not out of concern for civilian lives, but because those strikes disrupt their leverage, networks, and interests.
Their outrage is selective: loud for terrorists, silent for victims.
Let us be clear: this is not advocacy for peace.
It is terrorism laundering.
Calls for negotiation under these conditions are not driven by compassion; they are driven by calculation. Negotiation becomes a bargaining platform to demand money, recognition, and concessions, resources that are then recycled into deadlier violence.
History has shown repeatedly that dialogue which rewards terror does not end bloodshed; it funds the next phase of it.
The Real Threat Is Not Only in the Bush. Nigeria’s counterterrorism challenge is compounded by a dangerous strategic blind spot. Military operations have focused heavily on fighters operating in forests and rural enclaves, while the urban terrorist ecosystem that sustains them remains largely untouched.
This is a fatal mistake.
Terrorist groups do not operate in isolation. Their survival depends on urban-based enablers who:
Control ransom payments, extortion proceeds, and illicit financial flows
Facilitate arms procurement, fuel supply, and logistics
Manage communications, intelligence, and propaganda
Provide political cover, negotiation channels, and legal shields
Rebrand mass violence as grievance, misunderstanding, or ideology
Without dismantling these urban networks, fighters in the bush are easily replaced. Killing foot soldiers while protecting financiers, propagandists, and facilitators only guarantees regeneration.
Why Nigeria and Its Partners Must Recalibrate
Urban networks are the command centers of terrorism. Fighters execute violence in remote areas, but strategy, financing, and narrative control originate in cities.
Ransoms are paid in urban financial systems.
Weapons are sourced and transported through urban supply chains.
Propaganda is crafted in studios and lecture halls, not forests.
When these actors are left untouched, a dangerous moral hazard emerges: terror becomes profitable, legitimacy expands, and the authority of the state erodes.
Over time, tolerated urban terrorist networks evolve into shadow power structures capable of influencing policy, elections, and security decisions.
That is how states are hollowed out from within.
The Imperative
Counterterrorism must be comprehensive, not cosmetic.
It must target those who pull the trigger and those who provide the platform. There can be no immunity for terror apologists, no protected status for propagandists, and no negotiations that reward mass violence.
Justice for victims demands moral clarity.
National security demands strategic honesty.
Sympathizing with terrorism is participation in terrorism.
Nigeria, and its international partners, must confront the urban architects and defenders of this bloodshed with the same resolve used against fighters in the bush.
Anything less is not peace. It is surrender by another name.
