How Not To Lose The Insurgency

By Alabi Williams / Posted 14 April, 2025

Terrorism and banditry have become major issues of the day. Citizens take to the social media to lament and share chilling experiences of victims who manage to escape after paying ransoms. Many don’t make it back home.

Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com

The danger is ever present now, more of a pandemic, with nearly every citizen knowing someone who has encountered the terrorists. In community platforms, there are reports about members that had fallen victims and urgent calls are made to raise rescue sums. This is the new normal and it is unacceptable.

In other geo-political zones, the terrorists do not come for ransom. They invade isolated and unprotected communities to kill and to destroy. Sadly, despite hefty defence budgets and military bombardments, it doesn’t look like government is close to closing this ugly chapter in the country’s history. In fact, containment efforts are overstretched, as terrorists mutate across different forests and hideouts.

The mood is that the government and law-abiding citizens are losing the fight and terrorists are winning. They use the social media to advertise their activities, including mocking helpless and overpowered victims in captivity. The time has come for government to change strategy. It’s no longer good tactics to make heavy budgets and use propaganda to explain glaring inefficiencies. Let government develop the political will to make the final push before Nigeria ceases to thrive.

The revelation by Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State, to the effect that government may be losing the fight along the Northeast axis, seemed to be a wake-up call. Borno had been home to Boko Haram since around 2010 under President Umar Yar’Adua, but is now exposed to activities of other international terrorists. The spread of banditry and terrorism to other parts of the country has had a toll on containment measures. The military is overtasked and Zulum is feeling abandoned.

Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com

At a Security Council Meeting held in Government House, Maiduguri, Zulum lamented that military formations were being dislodged in Wulgo, Sabongari and Wajirko, areas that had been recovered from the terrorists. He was concerned about renewed killings and abductions going on in the state. The governor expressed fears that the focus by the army and the Defence ministry has shifted significantly from the Northeast, which borders the Sahel, from where the troublemakers infiltrate the country.

Stressing that the location of Borno is strategic in the fight against insurgency, he demanded more deployment of forces and hardware. Hear him: “While we commend the Nigerian military, Police, DSS as wells as paramilitary in maintaining law and order in the state, we also have to say the truth, otherwise, all the gains we have made so far will be a mirage.”

On March 24, Boko Haram terrorists were reported to have launched attacks against two military formations, causing troops to be dislodged from their bases. There was the report of landmine explosion along the Maiduguri-Damboa-Biu Road, that affected the convoy of the Brigade Commander of ‘Operation Hadin Kai’. In January, not less than 40 farmers were reported killed in the Dumba community in Kukawa council area of the state. That got the governor worried of an escalation and he spoke out.

Ali Ndume, the senator representing Borno South, also shared an account of how he perceives the insurgency fight. He too feared that government is losing the momentum to insufficient boots on the ground and poor welfare for soldiers. According to him, in recent television interviews, the situation is so bad that one cannot travel anywhere in Borno between 5.p.m and 8a.m. without an escort. How many citizens can afford going about with escorts? He lamented that soldiers fighting the terrorists are not sufficiently catered for. According to him, some military personnel still don’t earn the minimum wage of N70,000. Some don’t get their daily ration at the right time. The summary is that the morale of the fighters is low.

The positives in the accounts by Zulum and Ndume include the opportunity for the Federal Government to hear facts from official sources that are not likely to be tainted by politics. Both the governor and senator are ranking members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and are officials of government. They are not likely to mislead their government. They also owe their constituents the responsibility to say it the way it is, so that lives are not wasted endlessly.

That, however has not been the thinking in government. As far as government is concerned, every criticism is an affront to its mandate to govern, leaving no space for the opposition within and without to contribute their governance quota. Abuja was quick to propagate that it had invested heavily in military procurements as a demonstration of commitment to fighting terrorism. The minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, insisted that government was working very hard to bring the situation under control in Borno and elsewhere, especially in the last two years.

Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com

The minister said: “The Tinubu administration is committed to eradicating acts of banditry and terrorism across the country. The successes achieved by the security agencies in the last 18 months are an indication that, indeed, Nigeria is gradually returning to normalcy. Government calls on all, especially the sub-national governments, to join hands to ensure rapid eradication of the remaining pockets of criminal elements wherever they may be.”

The Defence Headquarters separately countered that it was doing a lot to make the country safe. The Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj. Gen, Markus Kangye, said “the military is sacrificing a lot, and our efforts should be appreciated. We are doing our best. We are doing what we are supposed to do, and we are still doing it.” Indeed, the military and other forces have made sacrifices no citizen would deny. If data were to be made available, perhaps every Nigerian is connected to one family or the other that have lost dear ones (soldiers) to the senseless insurgency fight.

Maybe it’s not altogether about the military. It is more about the politicians who introduce sectarianism and ethnicity into politics. That was how the madness began in Borno, under a democratic governor who formed a pact with an Islamic sect, until they fell apart. Boko Haram was the direct product of that unholy alliance. And here, citizens are paying the bills and harvesting the consequences, while the politicians lounge in safe havens at Abuja and in Government Houses.

That approach of the minister of information in countering narratives of a governor battling insurgency is unhelpful. This Presidency thinks propaganda is better than delivery of good governance and they have hired enough hands to counter and insult citizens who dare to speak truth to power. That approach was inherited from the Buhari government, when Lai Mohammed used propaganda to defeat the insurgents over and again on paper.

It was propaganda that brought the APC to power. They promised things they had no capacity to deliver, including ending insurgency in a matter of months. Instead of ending insurgency, which was then an isolated incident in the North-east, terrorism spread to the North-west, North-central and now South-west, under a General Buhari that was promoted by APC leaders out of proportion. It is nearly 10 years since APC challenged the ousted Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for lacking capacity to make the country safe.

Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com

Lending his weight to the propaganda machinery of the party in 2017, then national leader of APC, Bola Tinubu, commended the Buhari government for allegedly defeating Boko Haram. Commenting on the strategy that brought APC into power, in an address to participants of Course 25 of the National Defence College (NDC), Tinubu commended the military for defeating Boko Haram.

He said: “I commend the Nigerian Military for what it has achieved against Boko Haram. You have battled and defeated the evil enterprise. This vile force has been reduced to where it no longer poses a strategic threat. You have done as well as a military can in putting down this amorphous danger. The nation thanks you. I must say here, however, that we cannot lower our guard. We have learned cardinal lessons from the Boko Haram crisis. First, we must govern justly and for the benefit of the people to prevent the recurrence of extremism in the future.”

That future is here and one dares to say no lessons were learned under Buhari. It’s just propaganda. Tinubu inherited a landscape infested with extremes of ethnic hate and religious bigotry. He inherited the country after sponsors of banditry and terrorism had planted their vassals in every land, while others went to sleep. They were aided by federal might to carry sophisticated arms while others couldn’t carry mere locally made firearms.

The harvest is now and propaganda can’t win the fight. It is not correct to tout successes achieved in the last 18 months. There may be efforts, but the statistics do not support government awarding itself pass mark.

In the Plateau, Governor Caleb Mutfwang, who was sworn into office same day as President Tinubu, has not known peace in the last 18 months. According to the governor, 64 Plateau communities are presently taken over by bandits.

The governor said: “These communities that have been recently attacked were part of the communities that were attacked in 2023 but they survived and rebuilt themselves.”

This has gone on repeatedly for more than 10 years, the governor said. In the recent attack, over 50 persons were killed in five communities with 300 houses burnt. That means that these communities are targeted for genocidal killings.

Mutfwang added: “If these attacks have been going on for close to 10 years, it tells you that there is a deliberate, conscious attempt to clean out the population and to reopen.”

Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com

Let the Tinubu administration discard the Buhari strategy of indifference and propaganda. Government must work out strategies to enable communities defend themselves, in partnership with the forces. Let 2027 not constitute a distraction and excuse not to do something.

Note: This article was first published by The Guardian Newspaper.
Opinions expressed by Columnists/Contributors is theirs and do NOT necessarily reflect the views of DDNewsonline.com