Daniel Meshak

How did educated Nigerians, including much of our media, come to accept the term “bandits” for organised armed groups that massacre civilians, perpetrate mass rape, ambush military convoys, attack military aircraft, extort billions through ransom and illegal taxation, and seize, govern and violently defend territories for years? I find this persistent mischaracterisation deeply disturbing, particularly from journalists, security analysts and public officials who should understand the gravity of the crimes they are describing. At what point did sustained, organised violence against civilian populations, accompanied by territorial control and systematic intimidation, become something as casually described as “banditry”? This is not a harmless semantic distinction. Language shapes public understanding, influences policy responses and determines how seriously society confronts atrocities. When we minimise the identity of perpetrators, we risk diminishing the enormity of their crimes and obscuring the experiences of their victims. Nigeria's security crisis is grave enough without the intellectual dishonesty of sanitising terrorism through convenient vocabulary. Call terrorism by its name. Call those who perpetrate it terrorists.