A situation whereby terrorists have the leisure to negotiate and renege at will is a damning comment on the commitment of the Nigerian government to prosecute the war against terror. Nigeria is ranked a frightening eighth by the Global Terrorism Index on the 2024 list of the most terrorised countries on earth and an abysmal 147th of 163 countries on the Global Peace Index. These are absolutely unacceptable. No government worthy to be so-called should be comfortable with these.  

The battle must be taken to the enemy with maximum force to compel them to sue for negotiation. It should not at all be the other way around as it appears to be in the three cases of Kaduna and Katsina states. Taken together, it makes Nigeria look like a failing state. This country is not, and it will not grant terrorists the freedom to do as they will. It needs to be stated that terrorists who agree to negotiate terms with sufficiently powerful nations do not dare to renege. Nigeria cannot be different from the ways of civilised rules of engagement.
  
Salihu Bakhari, a retired military officer and security expert is reported to observe that the government cannot succeed while bargaining from the position of weakness. ‘The bandits are fully loaded, they have everything they need including fighters, arms and money and you are talking about amnesty? No, it doesn’t work like that. For amnesty to work with any group of miscreants such as bandits, kidnappers or terrorists, the government must first decimate them and then engage the remnants from a position of strength’. We cannot agree more. It is intolerable that terrorist would issue conditions (such as that their men held in prisons be released) upon which they will adhere to a negotiated agreement.
  
Terrorists have, by the accepted definition of the term, committed heinous crimes. The Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 defines ‘terrorism’ as ‘an act willfully performed with the intention of furthering an ideology, whether political, religious, racial, or ethnic…’ The wide range of crimes of terrorism under this piece of legislation include ‘attack on a person’s life, in the form of grievous bodily harm, or death’, ‘kidnapping’, ‘seriously intimidating a population’, and ‘destruction of public facility’ and ‘infrastructural facility’.  All these and more terrorists operating in the Nigerian space have committed.
  
The ‘Kaduna Model’ being touted must not lose sight of the criminal aspect of terrorists’ deeds. Nigeria remains a country under the rule of law, therefore these acts stand punishable under the Terrorism Act.
 
The somewhat piecemeal approach to negotiation with terrorists is cause for worry. In truth, Section 14 (2) (b) states that ‘the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government’. This provision puts, obviously, the burden on every tier of government. Understandably, therefore, the state governments have taken charge. However, some security experts argue for a holistic approach to secure the country.
 
Granted, as Mr. Nathaniel Musa, a security expert is reported to note, that security is expensive, it stands to reason that the Federal Government is in the best position among the three tiers of government, to marshal the resources to this end. Indeed, under the extant constitution, the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation (or his delegate) is empowered to give ‘such lawful directions’ to the Nigeria Police Force ‘with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order as he may consider necessary’; or to ‘determine the operational use of the armed forces of the Federation.’
 
The Terrorism Act is a federal law and offences under it are subject to condign punishment, not the rules of engagement defined by sub-national entities. This being so, the ‘non-kinetic approach’ by the Uba Sani government requires deeper, broader, and further thinking. This is irrespective of the involvement of ‘federal agencies’ as claimed by the governor. For example, the intention to outlaw the activities of the local vigilante groups –as erroneously done by the Masari administration in Katsina- must not be hastily implemented. The plan to rehabilitate and reintegrate ‘repentant criminals must be done in tandem with the rehabilitation of their victims. It is unconscionable, even inconceivable, that criminals will enjoy state generosity in the face of their hapless victims languishing in the decrepit conditions of the internally displaced camps. They must not be made to feel that the dastardly violation of their rights as citizens was in vain.
 
The Tinubu-Shettima campaign document ‘Renewed Hope 2023’ promised to involve state governments in the fight against terrorism.  ‘Our government will work in close collaboration with State Governments and the National Assembly to enact measures necessary to secure and protect communities from criminal violence, particularly kidnapping and terrorism. These measures will be flexible and adaptive to fit local realities.’ This is a sensible intention that may also explain the participation of federal agencies in the ‘Peace Dialogue Group’.
 
It is axiomatic that all security matters are, in the final analysis, local but designed and implemented within a holistic and coordinated architecture. Indeed this explains the incessant call for a decentralised police system. If the ‘Kaduna Model’, cautiously implemented, succeeds where other similar efforts have foundered due to terrorists’ insincerity, it will be additional justification for devolution of more powers to the states and the local councils. It will also be one important step toward the so much desirable, unarguably, sensible ‘true federalism’.