WHEN TERRORISTS MOCK THE STATE

WHEN TERRORISTS MOCK THE STATE

By Sa’adiyyah Adebisi Hassan

A retired Major General is kidnapped and dies in captivity. Soldiers are ambushed and killed in Kaduna. Troops are attacked in Borno. Farmers are slaughtered in Zamfara. Villages continue to live under the shadow of fear. Families sell their property to pay ransom. Children grow up knowing the sound of gunfire better than the sound of peace. Yet the Nigerian state continues to behave as though these are isolated incidents instead of symptoms of a national security emergency.

At what point do we stop pretending?

At what point do we stop calling this “security challenges” and start admitting that armed criminal groups have become bold enough to openly challenge the authority of the Nigerian state?

Because that is exactly what is happening.

The death of Major General Abubakar Rabe in captivity should have shaken every office in Abuja. This was not an ordinary citizen hidden away in a remote village. This was a retired General, a man who spent years serving the nation. If criminals can abduct and hold a retired General until he dies in captivity, what message does that send to the ordinary teacher, farmer, trader, student, doctor or civil servant?

The message is simple and frightening: nobody feels untouchable anymore.

And that is why public frustration is boiling over.

The most dangerous thing happening in Nigeria is not just that terrorists and bandits are killing people. The most dangerous thing is that they increasingly appear unafraid of the consequences. Fear is supposed to flow in one direction, from criminals toward the state. In Nigeria, that equation appears dangerously reversed. Citizens fear criminals. Criminals seem less fearful of the state.

That should terrify every serious leader.

And then there is another question that many Nigerians are asking, even if officials do not like hearing it.

How can violent criminal networks continue to communicate, negotiate ransoms, circulate videos, move money and maintain support structures without creating intelligence opportunities?

✅Modern criminality leaves footprints.

✅Phones leave footprints.

✅SIM cards leave footprints.

✅Financial transactions leave footprints.

✅Internet activity leaves footprints.

✅Movement leaves footprints.

✅Communication leaves footprints.

✅Nothing simply appears from thin air.

Which is why many Nigerians become angry when they see stories of suspected bandits or criminal sympathizers flaunting wealth online, building audiences, distributing money or creating influence networks while communities they helped terrorize are burying their dead.

Every person is entitled to due process and evidence matters. But any serious country would investigate suspicious financial ecosystems around violent criminal networks aggressively and relentlessly.

Because terrorism is not sustained by bullets alone.

✅It is sustained by money.

✅It is sustained by logistics.

✅It is sustained by information.

✅It is sustained by collaborators.

✅It is sustained by people willing to normalize evil because there is money attached to it.

✅No terrorist organization survives in complete isolation.

✅Someone supplies information.

✅Someone moves money.

✅Someone facilitates communication.

✅Someone benefits.

That is why successful counterterrorism operations across the world do not focus only on gunmen in forests. They focus on the entire ecosystem that keeps the violence alive.

Nigeria’s problem is that it often appears to be chasing the symptoms while the disease continues growing.

A kidnapping gang should not only be viewed as armed men carrying rifles.

It should be viewed as a network.

A terror cell should not only be viewed as fighters.

It should be viewed as financiers, recruiters, propagandists, informants, transporters, suppliers and digital facilitators.

Destroy the network and the gunmen become isolated.

Ignore the network and new gunmen appear.

That is the lesson serious countries learned long ago.

The second lesson is even more important: intelligence wins wars before soldiers do.

A nation of over two hundred million people should not be relying primarily on reaction. It should be relying on anticipation.

The future of security is intelligence fusion.

✅Telecom intelligence.

✅Financial intelligence.

✅Cyber intelligence.

✅Human intelligence.

✅Border intelligence.

✅Geospatial intelligence.

All operating from one integrated national threat platform.

Not twenty agencies protecting twenty databases while criminals exploit the gaps.

The truth is that Nigeria does not have a shortage of brave soldiers. It does not have a shortage of brave police officers. It does not have a shortage of brave intelligence personnel.

What it appears to suffer from is a shortage of speed, integration, accountability and coordination.

And criminals thrive inside those gaps.

That is why every major attack must trigger a hard question: what information existed before the attack, who had it, what was done with it and why did prevention fail?

Those questions are not anti-government.

Those questions are pro-accountability.

Because the purpose of security is not explaining attacks after they happen.

The purpose of security is preventing them from happening in the first place.

The greatest tragedy in all of this is that Nigerians are gradually becoming emotionally exhausted. Every day brings another headline. Another abduction. Another ambush. Another funeral. Another community attacked. Another family destroyed.

No country should normalize that.

No society should accept that.

No government should become comfortable with that.

The death of Major General Abubakar Rabe, the killing of soldiers, the slaughter of farmers and the endless stream of kidnappings are not separate stories. They are warnings. Warnings that criminals are testing the limits of state authority every single day.

The question now is whether the state intends to reclaim that authority decisively, intelligently and relentlessly or continue issuing statements while citizens continue counting the dead.

Because a nation is not judged by the speeches of its leaders.

It is judged by whether its people can live without fear.

And right now, too many Nigerians are afraid.

WHEN TERRORISTS MOCK THE STATE