By Gloria Drealomalicha
Nigeria is a strange country.
A country where the poor bury their loved ones, wipe their tears with the corners of their wrappers, and then switch on the television only to discover that the people who helped create their misery are being prepared for a second chance at life.
Sometimes, one wonders whether this country is a serious nation or an expensive practical joke.
Imagine this.
A farmer wakes up before dawn, says his prayers, kisses his wife and heads to the farm.
Bandits arrive.
The farmer is killed.
His wife becomes a widow.
His children become orphans.
His village is deserted.
His community becomes another statistic on the evening news.
Years later, one of the men who lived among the killers emerges from the forest and is welcomed into a government rehabilitation programme. He receives counselling. Vocational training.
Reintegration support.
Meanwhile, the farmer’s widow is still waiting for compensation.
If this were a Nollywood script, critics would reject it for being unrealistic.
Yet here we are.
This week, Chief of Defence Staff Christopher Musa defended Nigeria’s deradicalisation programme, insisting that many of those being rehabilitated were not terrorists but victims themselves — people forced into insurgent camps against their will.
Perhaps he is right.
Perhaps some truly had no choice.
Perhaps some were dragged into the madness at gunpoint.
But Nigerians have heard so many explanations over the years that explanations themselves are beginning to sound like excuses.
Every time insecurity strikes, there is always a reason.
There is always a clarification.
There is always a justification.
What citizens rarely hear is the sound of handcuffs.
What they rarely see is justice.
The painful irony is almost poetic.
The government asks victims to forgive.
The terrorists ask for mercy.
And somewhere in the middle, ordinary Nigerians are still asking for protection.
What an extraordinary country.
In many parts of Nigeria, people are afraid to travel after sunset.
Farmers are afraid to enter their farms.
Students are afraid to attend school.
Passengers pray before every road journey
Yet somehow, the national conversation keeps returning to the feelings, welfare and rehabilitation of people emerging from terrorist camps.
One cannot help but wonder:
Who is rehabilitating the victims?
Who is counselling the widows?
Who is reintegrating the orphans?
Who is treating the trauma of communities that watched their loved ones slaughtered?
Who is rebuilding the villages erased from the map?
The answer, too often, appears to be nobody.
Nigeria has become a country where the dead are expected to remain silent while the living are encouraged to move on.
But grief does not move on because a government programme says it should.
Pain does not disappear because officials hold press conferences.
Trauma does not vanish because someone receives vocational training.
The danger of this approach is not merely political.
It is psychological.
It is moral.
It is national.
A society that appears more compassionate towards those associated with violence than towards those who suffered from it risks creating a dangerous message.
That message is simple:
The state may not notice you when you are a victim.
But it will certainly notice you when you become a security problem.
And that is a terrifying lesson for any country to teach.
Of course, no civilised nation should execute people without trial.
No civilised society should abandon humanitarian principles.
No reasonable person wants endless revenge.
But neither should a nation become so obsessed with forgiving criminals that it forgets the innocent.
Mercy without justice becomes mockery.
Compassion without accountability becomes insult.
Reconciliation without trust becomes theatre.
And Nigerians have watched enough theatre.
What makes this even more painful is that the people being asked to forgive are often the people who paid the highest price.
Not politicians.
Not government officials.
Not the wealthy elite protected by convoys and security details.
It is the market woman.
The farmer.
The teacher.
The bus driver.
The child who still wakes up screaming from nightmares.
The mother who still sets a place at the dinner table for a son who never returned.
These are the people carrying the burden of Nigeria’s insecurity.
Yet they are constantly told to be patient.
To understand.
To reconcile.
To forgive.
How much forgiveness can one nation demand from its wounded?
How many graves must be dug before sympathy finally shifts from the perpetrators to the victims?
At some point, Nigerians want less explanation and more protection.
Less rehabilitation and more justice.
Less sympathy for those who emerged from the forest and more concern for those who never made it out alive.
Because a government’s first duty is not to explain the wolves.
Its first duty is to protect the sheep.
And when citizens begin to feel that the wolves are receiving more understanding than the sheep are receiving protection, trust begins to die.
A nation can survive many things.
Economic hardship.
Political crises.
Even war.
But when people start losing faith that their government stands firmly on the side of innocent citizens, the damage cuts deeper than any terrorist attack.
That is why this debate matters.
Because for many Nigerians, this is no longer just about rehabilitation.
It is about a painful question echoing from village to village, from cemetery to cemetery, from one grieving family to another:
Who is really being protected?
Gloria Drealomalicha is the Editor of Starnews NG
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