For me, the legacy of the late President Muhammadu Buhari remains the most profound failure of Nigerian leadership. It was a tenure defined by a litany of institutional abuses. Chief among these was Operation Safe Corridor, OPSC. Initiated almost as soon as he touched the levers of power in May 2015 and fully activated by September 2016, it was a betrayal of his primary campaign promise. Instead of the total military defeat of Boko Haram he had pledged, he gave us an abomination: a programme designed to “rehabilitate and reintegrate” so-called repentant jihadists back into the very society they had spent almost a decade trying to incinerate.

One must ask: what psychological art exists to decipher the “repentance” of a person whose mind was forged in the nurseries of radical Islam? Can a soul conditioned for carnage be scrubbed clean by a few weeks of government-sponsored civics lessons? Isn’t it possible that those purportedly “deradicalising” terrorists are themselves terrorists that need to be deradicalised?

The administration and its brass called it a “non-kinetic” component of counter-insurgency. In reality, OPSC is a mechanism used to circumvent the scales of justice in favour of Islamic terrorists. These are men who have slaughtered innocent Nigerians, levelled indigenous communities, and ambushed and massacred our soldiers in the thousands. They are the architects of a crisis that rendered three million Nigerians internally displaced and robbed an entire generation of children of their right to education. By any standard of law or morality, these are the worst elements, the scum of human society. They deserve no mercy on the battlefield, and those captured alive deserve the swift, cold edge of justice—maximum sentences to punish their atrocities and serve as a grim deterrent to others.

Instead, the Buhari regime simply pampered them the way we usually celebrate victorious Super Eagles. We watched in horror as OPSC scooped these vermin from the dark recesses of the Sambisa Forest, housed them in cosy camps, and treated them like returning rock stars. They were outfitted in sharp raiment and forced back upon a traumatised public that wanted nothing to do with them. While military authorities have repeatedly denied that these outcasts were absorbed into our security forces, the suspicion persists. This distrust was fuelled by the perception that the regime was a silent promoter of armed attacks on indigenous communities by Fulani herdsmen and terrorist groups.

The strategic fallout of this “soft-landing” policy has been catastrophic. OPSC appeared to provide the breathing room for Abubakar Shekau’s Boko Haram to establish a new, lethal front in Niger State. This created the fertile soil required for other jihadist groups to seize territory in Kwara and parts of Kogi. Furthermore, during the global shadow of the COVID-19 lockdowns, we witnessed the organised movement of thousands of strange young men from the North to the South, hidden in the bellies of cement, cattle and food trucks. They arrived, disembarked and marched directly into the forests to hibernate like malignant tumours. We recall how Buhari pushed policies designed to force Nigerians to yield their ancestral lands to accommodate his Fulani tribesmen from all over Africa. It was fiercely resisted, but the damage was done. Many believe these elements now constitute sleeper cells, poised for the signal to strike.

Perhaps the most galling aspect of this saga is the image-laundering campaign spearheaded by high-ranking Northern politicians and military officers. In a moment of historic tone-deafness, Major General Abdulmalik Bulama Biu, the GOC 7 Division, claimed in Maiduguri that after draining N32 trillion from our national treasury and slaughtering for 17 years, “repentant” Boko Haram members could still occupy any office in the land—including the Presidency! It was a barbaric utterance that insulted the grave of every fallen soldier and slaughtered citizen.

Rather than a retraction, the highest-ranking soldier, Chief of Defence Staff General Olufemi Oluleye, doubled down. At a function in Abuja, he had the temerity to compare mass murderers to the “Prodigal Son” of the Bible. It is a theological and moral perversion. In the Biblical narrative, the Prodigal Son squandered his own inheritance; he did not slit the throats of his neighbours, burn down his father’s village, or kidnap his sisters. He returned in repentance and humility, not as a pampered ward of a rogue regime.

Why are our Army chiefs so shameless in this PR campaign? Why have they adopted the same apologetic refrain perfected by Sheikh Ahmad Gumi for Fulani terrorists? Why do some Nigerian Army officers appear more protective of the terrorists they have fought for nearly two decades than the civilians they are sworn to defend? It is a betrayal of soldiers who watch their comrades fall, only to hear their commanders speak in affectionate tones about these enemies. Is it any wonder that the youth of certain parts of this country are rejecting the call to join the Army?

OPSC is a bankrupt military strategy. It has not ended the war; it has merely allowed it to diversify and spread. I had held a thin hope that President Bola Tinubu would dismantle this charade and strike the insurgents with the full weight of the state. Unfortunately, that hope was misplaced. He and his appointees have simply curated the Buhari legacy. It is no surprise that global powers like the United States and Israel are watching Nigeria’s internal security with direct concern. They understand what our own leaders refuse to admit: once Islamists gain the position of strength in the “Giant of Africa,” the entire West becomes vulnerable.

I count myself out of the delusional claim that terrorists are “our brothers”. They are my enemies. You cannot defeat an enemy for whom you harbour a secret soft spot. That is not the spirit of a warrior.

Those who push this narrative of brotherhood with butchers should be investigated.