{"id":32131,"date":"2025-11-24T07:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T07:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=32131"},"modified":"2025-11-24T07:00:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T07:00:24","slug":"how-to-stop-the-bandits-by-oviawe-austine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=32131","title":{"rendered":"How to Stop The Bandits by Oviaw\u00e9 Austine"},"content":{"rendered":"
When the full story of the killings in Nigeria is eventually told, civilian and military alike, the country will discover that it has been wobbling on the edge of disintegration for years. Anyone paying attention can see the pattern: coordinated violence, geographical spread, identical tactics, and a quiet but steady push toward making ungoverned spaces the new normal.<\/p>\n

The truth many avoid is simple. Nigeria is under pressure from foreign Fulani militias who are trying to carve out a homeland. The Fulani footprint in governance is part of what makes this crisis uniquely dangerous. They don\u2019t blend into host communities; they assert control. And Nigeria is one of the few places where this control reaches into political, traditional, and military structures. That access is exactly what has enabled these networks to operate with confidence. When the gatekeepers become collaborators, infiltration becomes effortless.<\/p>\n

The Buhari era raised the threat level to heights the country had never seen. His RUGA attempt was not a harmless agricultural scheme; it was a political land grab dressed up as policy. The fierce resistance it met, especially in the West and South, is part of the reason those regions still have some breathing space today. If RUGA had sailed through, those areas would have been swallowed into the same chaos we now see in Plateau, Kaduna, Niger, Taraba, Benue, and Zamfara.<\/p>\n

The spike in kidnappings is not a random crime wave. It is a harassment strategy. It is the same blueprint used against Jonathan: constant pressure, constant fear, Sunday morning bombs ripping through churches while security agencies argued over jurisdiction. When terrorists feel the government wobbling, they push harder.<\/p>\n

This administration cannot afford that wobble. No negotiations. No amnesty files. No backdoor peace deals that reward violence. Militants understand one language: containment and neutralisation. Nigeria has capable allies at its borders. A joint offensive with Niger and Chad can box these insurgents in and crush their supply lines. The terrain is difficult, but the task is not impossible.<\/p>\n

What Nigeria lacks is not ability but will. Drone technology should not still be an afterthought. Precision drones can locate camps, monitor movement, and strike before an attack is even planned. Every military that has overpowered insurgency in the last twenty years did so with drones, not luck.<\/p>\n

The morale of the troops fighting in these forests needs rebuilding. They need modern gear that can survive real battles, not parade ground items. They need commanders who act like field generals, not call centre agents waiting for Abuja to approve every bullet. Wars are not won by remote control from the capital. Local commanders must have authority to act, engage, pursue, and finish.<\/p>\n

If Nigeria fails to fight, Nigeria will fracture. The signs are already on the wall. But if the government chooses resolve instead of hesitation, technology instead of excuses, and strategy instead of politics, this war can be turned around. The alternative is to keep mourning, town by town, until the map of Nigeria becomes a memory.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the full story of the killings in Nigeria is eventually told, civilian and military alike, the country will discover that it has been wobbling on the edge of disintegration for years. Anyone paying attention can see the pattern: coordinated violence, geographical spread, identical tactics, and a quiet but steady push toward making ungoverned spaces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-opinion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/FULANI-HERDSMEN.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-8mf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32132,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32131\/revisions\/32132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}