By Chief Malcolm Emokiniovo Onirhobo .
The statement credited to Prof. Usman Yusuf is deeply troubling, constitutionally indefensible, and morally reckless.
To describe armed bandits who kidnap schoolchildren, massacre villagers, rape women, destroy farms, and displace indigenous communities as “freedom fighters” is not only offensive to the victims of their crimes, it amounts to an attempt to launder terrorism through intellectual sophistry.
Nigeria is a constitutional democracy governed by law, not sentiment, tribal affiliation, or romanticised narratives of criminal violence.
Under Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, the security and welfare of }the people shall be the primary purpose of government. The Federal Government has a constitutional duty, not an option, to deploy lawful force to protect citizens from armed non-state actors who operate outside the law.
Bandits are not freedom fighters. They do not pursue self-determination through recognised political struggle. They do not submit to international humanitarian law. They do not represent oppressed peoples through lawful structures.They are criminal gangs, proscribed under Nigerian law, whose activities fall squarely within terrorism, insurgency, and organised violent crime.
The suggestion that a Minister of Defence must abandon military options in favour of “dialogue” with armed criminals without disarmament, surrender, or accountability amounts to a call for state capitulation.
Dialogue does not replace law enforcement. Dialogue does not override the Constitution. Dialogue does not excuse mass murder.
While non-kinetic measures may complement security operations, no sovereign state negotiates its existence away by redefining criminals as freedom fighters simply because they share ethnic or regional identity.
Equally disturbing is the implied admission of unauthorised access to terrorist enclaves. Any civilian who claims to have entered bandit forests, met their leaders, and acted as an intermediary raises serious questions of national security, complicity, and accountability, which competent authorities must investigate.
Let it be stated clearly:
The Nigerian State has no constitutional obligation to negotiate with terrorists.
The Armed Forces are lawfully empowered to neutralise armed threats. Victims of banditry largely rural, indigenous, and defenceless Nigerians deserve justice, not ideological excuses for their tormentors.
Peace without justice is surrender. Dialogue without law is anarchy. And redefining bandits as freedom fighters is an insult to every Nigerian buried in a shallow grave.
Nigeria must pursue peace but peace under the Constitution, not peace at the gunpoint of criminals.
