By Innocent Ohiomu
There are moments in the life of a nation when compassion becomes confused with weakness, and when the understandable desire for peace begins to obscure the demands of justice. Nigeria has reached such a moment in its long struggle against Boko Haram. The debate over what should happen to members of the terrorist organisation has increasingly been framed in the language of rehabilitation, forgiveness, dialogue and amnesty. There are certainly circumstances in which reconciliation is necessary, and there are people caught up in violent movements who may deserve an opportunity to return to normal life. But there is a fundamental distinction that must never be lost: there is a difference between showing mercy to the coerced and showing pity to those who deliberately choose terror. There is an even greater difference between forgiving a repentant offender and excusing the people who finance, equip, encourage or politically protect terrorism. Nigeria must not allow sentiment to erase that distinction.
Boko Haram did not become one of the country's most dreaded terrorist organisations by accident. Its campaign was built upon violence, intimidation and the deliberate destruction of communities. Its victims were not abstract numbers. They were fathers and mothers, farmers and traders, students and teachers, policemen and soldiers, children and elderly people. They were Nigerians whose greatest offence was being in a village, a market, a school or a place of worship when the terrorists arrived. Entire communities were uprooted. Families were separated. Businesses were destroyed. Houses were burned. Schools were attacked. Places that once represented ordinary Nigerian life became scenes of fear and devastation. Yet whenever the debate turns to what should be done with the perpetrators, there is an extraordinary tendency to concentrate on the future of the men who created the suffering while paying insufficient attention to the people who must live with its consequences.
This is where the language of pity becomes dangerous. Pity is a natural human response to suffering, but it must be directed toward the victims before it is extended to the perpetrators. The child who loses a parent deserves pity. The woman who returns to her community and finds her family destroyed deserves pity. The farmer who discovers that his land, house and livelihood have been wiped out deserves pity. The young person whose education has been interrupted by violence deserves pity. The soldier who returns from the battlefield carrying the psychological scars of war deserves pity. The community that has buried its sons and daughters deserves pity. These are the people whose suffering should command the first attention of the Nigerian state. It is morally perverse to demand that they sympathise with the men who terrorised them before the nation has adequately recognised what those men did.
The argument for compassion toward terrorists often begins with an appeal to circumstances. Some people, we are told, were recruited through poverty. Others were radicalised. Some were threatened. Some were young. Some may have been forced into the organisation. All these possibilities deserve investigation. But context is not the same thing as absolution. Poverty does not force a person to murder an innocent civilian. Unemployment does not require anyone to burn a village. Religious manipulation does not compel an individual to slaughter children. Political frustration does not justify terrorism. Where coercion can be established, the law should make the necessary distinction. Where voluntary participation, planning, command responsibility or deliberate killing can be established, the perpetrators must be held accountable.
Nigeria should therefore resist the temptation to treat every member of a terrorist organisation as either a helpless victim or an irredeemable monster. Reality is more complicated. Some people are victims of kidnapping and coercion. Some are ideological recruits. Some are opportunists. Some are foot soldiers. Some are commanders. Some provide logistics. Some supply intelligence. Some provide money. Some recruit others. Some give political or social cover. A serious counterterrorism policy must distinguish among these categories. But that complexity should not be used as an excuse for collective amnesia. The fact that one person was forced into an organisation does not make the commander who ordered an attack innocent. The fact that a fighter later claims repentance does not erase the suffering of those who were attacked.
There is also a tendency to discuss the sponsors of terrorism as though their role is somehow less serious than that of the men who carry guns. This is a mistake. Terrorism requires more than fighters. It requires money, information, transportation, communications, recruitment, safe houses, political connections and networks capable of sustaining violence. The man who pulls the trigger is responsible for his crime, but the person who provides the weapon, funds the operation or knowingly facilitates the attack cannot hide behind the distance between himself and the scene of the crime. A terrorist organisation cannot survive without an ecosystem of support. That ecosystem must be exposed and dismantled.
The sponsors of terrorism are especially dangerous because they often operate from the shadows. The gunman is visible. The financier may not be. The man who plants a bomb is eventually identified, but the person who pays for the operation may remain comfortably outside the battlefield. The fighter may be killed or captured, while the person who provided the resources quietly continues his life. This is why counterterrorism cannot end with the arrest of foot soldiers. It must follow the money, identify the networks and expose those who make terrorism possible.
There should be no sentimental distinction between the terrorist and the sponsor when both knowingly participate in the same enterprise of destruction. The sponsor who knowingly finances murder has made a choice. The official who knowingly provides protection to terrorists has made a choice. The intermediary who knowingly transports weapons has made a choice. The individual who knowingly provides intelligence for attacks has made a choice. Those choices have consequences. A country that punishes only the visible actors while ignoring the people behind them creates an illusion of justice.
This is also why amnesty must be approached with extreme caution. Amnesty can sometimes help end armed conflicts, but it should never become a reward for successful terrorism. If an organisation learns that enough violence will eventually compel the government to negotiate, then violence becomes a political instrument. If terrorists can destroy communities and later receive public rehabilitation without meaningful accountability, the message to future extremists is deeply troubling. It tells them that the state may eventually become tired, frightened or politically desperate enough to make concessions.
That is not peace. It is surrender disguised as reconciliation.
Nigeria must understand that genuine reconciliation cannot be built on the humiliation of victims. The state cannot tell communities that they must forget because the government has decided that former terrorists are now useful citizens. It cannot ask widows to welcome men accused of destroying their families without first establishing the facts. It cannot expect communities to trust former insurgents simply because officials have announced a rehabilitation programme. Trust is not created by government statements. It is earned through truth, accountability, restitution and time.
The first obligation of the state is to protect its citizens. The second is to ensure that those who violate the rights of citizens face justice. Rehabilitation has a place within that framework, but rehabilitation must not replace accountability. There should be pathways for those who were abducted, coerced or otherwise forced into terrorism. There should also be opportunities for genuine repentance where appropriate. But those who planned massacres, ordered attacks, financed terrorism or deliberately murdered civilians cannot be placed in the same category as those who were dragged into the conflict against their will.
The same principle applies to political actors. Nigeria's politicians must be particularly careful about how they speak about terrorism. There is nothing wrong with advocating dialogue when dialogue can save lives. There is nothing wrong with exploring peaceful solutions to an insurgency. But politicians cross a dangerous line when they begin to romanticise violent actors, minimise their crimes or treat them as legitimate political constituencies without first demanding accountability. Terrorism should never become another instrument of political bargaining.
This is especially important in a country where political competition can be fierce and where allegations of manipulation of armed groups have repeatedly surfaced. Every political leader should understand that the short-term advantage of exploiting violence can become the long-term destruction of the country. Once political actors begin treating terrorists as useful allies, bargaining partners or instruments against opponents, the boundaries of democratic politics become dangerously blurred. A terrorist organisation does not become less dangerous because someone with political influence finds it useful.
The victims deserve better than this. They deserve a state that remembers their names and does not reduce their suffering to statistics. They deserve investigations that establish what happened to their relatives. They deserve compensation where appropriate. They deserve rebuilt schools, functioning hospitals, secure communities and the opportunity to return home without fear. They deserve to know that the people responsible for destroying their lives have not simply been absorbed into society because politicians wanted a convenient ending to an inconvenient war.
There is another reason Nigeria should reject misplaced pity for terrorists and their sponsors. Terrorism thrives on the manipulation of sympathy. Its perpetrators understand that democratic societies have consciences. They know that governments eventually face pressure from families, human rights advocates, politicians and international organisations. They know that prolonged conflict creates fatigue. They know that the longer a war continues, the more attractive compromise becomes. None of this means that governments should abandon humanitarian principles. It means that humanitarian principles must be applied intelligently, without allowing terrorists to weaponise compassion against the people they have attacked.
The strongest response to terrorism is not cruelty. It is justice. A democratic state does not need to imitate terrorists in order to defeat them. It must instead demonstrate that the rule of law is stronger than the rule of fear. Those who surrender should be processed according to credible laws and procedures. Those who were coerced should be protected from unjust punishment. Those who committed serious crimes should face prosecution. Those who financed or sponsored terrorism should be investigated and prosecuted where evidence supports it. Victims should be heard. Communities should participate in decisions affecting their future. That is how a nation can pursue peace without sacrificing principle.
Nigeria must also reject the dangerous idea that every terrorist is merely a misguided young man waiting for an opportunity to become a good citizen. Some may indeed be capable of rehabilitation. Others may have been radicalised under circumstances that deserve serious examination. But terrorism is ultimately defined by conduct, not by sympathy. A person who deliberately chooses to kill innocent people has crossed a moral and legal boundary. The responsibility for that choice cannot simply be transferred to poverty, bad governance, religion or politics.
The same caution applies to the sponsors. The people behind terrorism must not be allowed to disappear when the battlefield changes. If Nigeria is serious about ending insurgency, it must investigate the networks that sustain it. Money must be traced. Weapons must be accounted for. Recruitment structures must be dismantled. Sources of intelligence and logistical support must be identified. Political connections, where they exist, must not be protected by influence. Terrorism survives when the people who enable it believe they are untouchable.
The country therefore needs a more honest conversation about forgiveness. Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting. Mercy is not the same as impunity. Reintegration is not the same as exoneration. Peace is not the same as surrender. These distinctions matter because nations, like individuals, can make moral mistakes in moments of exhaustion. Nigeria must not allow the understandable desire to end the bloodshed to become an excuse for abandoning justice.
The northeast has already paid an extraordinary price. Its people should not be asked to pay again by watching their tormentors receive sympathy while their own suffering is treated as yesterday's news. The country must remember that terrorism does not end simply because the terrorists stop appearing on television. The consequences remain in the widows, the orphans, the ruined communities and the damaged institutions. They remain in the fears of people who have learned that violence can arrive without warning. They remain in the generation of children whose understanding of childhood has been shaped by displacement and insecurity.
Nigeria can and should be compassionate. But its compassion should begin with those who were harmed.
There is room for repentance. There is room for rehabilitation. There is room for reconciliation. There may even be circumstances in which carefully structured amnesty contributes to ending violence. But none of these should become a blanket excuse for people who deliberately inflicted terror or knowingly made terrorism possible. A society that grants forgiveness without accountability risks teaching its citizens that their suffering can be negotiated away.
The terrorists do not deserve pity simply because they eventually become tired of fighting. Their sponsors do not deserve pity because they operated from behind the scenes. What they deserve is a fair process under the law, an opportunity where appropriate to demonstrate genuine repentance, and accountability proportionate to what they have done.
Nigeria owes its compassion first to the innocent. It owes its justice to the victims. And it owes its future to the truth.
Ohiomu is a journalist, social commentator and blogger
