By Ebuka Ukoh
A country burying its dead should not have to debate theology. Yet at a recent military lecture, Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, Olufemi Oluyede, framed the state’s approach to stemming terrorism in terms that sounded less like strategy and more like scripture.
Terrorists, he suggested, should not only be confronted but offered a path to repentance, invoking the imagery of the Bible’s prodigal son. In another setting, that language might have been taken as a metaphor. In a country where communities are still counting their losses, it emerges as something else entirely: a troubling glimpse into how the Nigerian state perceives its duty to protect law-abiding citizens and what to do with its power.
Let’s begin with the danger of theological framing. The biblical parable of the prodigal son is a story about personal repentance, forgiveness, and restoration within a moral and spiritual relationship. It is not a framework for statecraft or state actors. It is not a doctrine for managing armed violence from no state actors. To compare terrorists, who have killed, displaced, and traumatised communities, to a repentant son returning home is, at best, a category error.
At worst, it risks trivialising the consequences, scale, and gravity of their actions. Theology operates in the realm of grace. The state operates in the realm of law. When those boundaries blur, clarity suffers.
What is the state’s constitutional duty? A government does not exist to forgive on behalf of its citizens. It exists to protect them. Nigeria’s constitutional framework is clear. The primary purpose of government is to ensure the security and welfare of citizens. That responsibility cannot be outsourced to moral analogies or softened through religious imagery.
This does not mean the state must reject rehabilitation entirely. Reintegration programs can serve strategic purposes. They can reduce violence. They can encourage surrender. They can provide off-ramps from insurgency. But those programmes must be grounded in law, evidence, and accountability, not sermons. When the state begins to sound like a pulpit, it risks forgetting its core function.
Mercy without justice is siding with offenders.
The deeper concern is not the idea of rehabilitation. It is the framing, because when mercy is emphasised without equal clarity about justice, a dangerous message can emerge.
Victims begin to feel invisible. Communities begin to question whether their suffering is being acknowledged. Citizens begin to wonder whether the state is more concerned with the rehabilitation of perpetrators than the protection of the innocent.
In societies facing prolonged insecurity, perception matters. If citizens lose confidence in the state’s willingness to hold violent actors accountable, trust erodes. And once trust erodes, cooperation weakens. Intelligence dries up. Communities withdraw. Security becomes harder, not easier.
There is a legitimate strategic argument for leaving open pathways for surrender. Nigeria has already tested that theory through programmes like Operation Safe Corridor. Nearly a decade later, the violence continues, communities remain under threat, and the promise of rehabilitation has yet to translate into measurable security. Whatever its intentions, the hard truth is that the approach has not delivered the outcome citizens were told to expect.
Strategy requires precision, Metaphor, especially theological metaphor, introduces ambiguity where clarity is essential. The question is not whether the state should allow surrender. It is how that policy is justified, communicated, and balanced with justice.
About the cost of saying the wrong thing, words matter, especially when they come from those entrusted with national security. In a country where communities wake up daily to reports of attacks, kidnappings, and loss of life, language must reflect the weight of that reality.
To speak of terrorists in terms that evoke sympathy, without equally affirming accountability, risks sounding detached from the lived experience of citizens. It risks signalling that the state does not fully grasp the depth of the crisis it is meant to confront. That is why the statement, as presented, feels careless. Not necessarily in intent, but in impact.
Nigeria does not need to choose between justice and strategy. It must pursue both. It must create pathways for surrender, but those pathways must be structured, transparent, and accountable. They must include clear consequences, verification processes, and safeguards for affected communities.
Above all, they must never blur the moral distinction between victim and oppressor. A repentant insurgent is still accountable under the law. A grieving community still deserves justice. There is a line that must not be crossed – there is a place for faith in society. It shapes values, sustains communities, and offers meaning in times of crisis.
But the state must resist the temptation to govern through moral precepts and theology.
Once the language of grace replaces that of law, accountability becomes negotiable…and in a country already struggling with insecurity, that is a risk Nigeria cannot afford right now.
Nigeria does not need a state that preaches forgiveness before it guarantees protection. It needs a decisive state that understands its role, speaks with clarity, and acts with discipline. Because when citizens are under threat, the first duty of government is not to interpret repentance. It is to make sure fewer people need to repent for surviving.
Nigeria does not suffer from a lack of ideas. It suffers from a failure to draw the right lines.
There is a line between mercy and justice; between faith and governance, and between power and responsibility. When those lines blur, citizens pay the price. A state may choose its language. But it cannot escape its duty.
In a country where survival is no longer guaranteed, the first test of leadership is not what it says about redemption. It is what it does to prevent the next burial.
*Mr Ukoh, based in New York, the United States, is a coauthor of Built By The Ancestors, an alumnus of the American University of Nigeria, Yola, and a PhD student at Columbia University.
