Across Nigeria’s North-West and parts of the North-Central, a dangerous idea has quietly taken root: that peace can be bought by negotiating with armed bandits who have not been defeated. Exhausted communities and desperate local authorities have embraced ceasefires, dialogue, and informal agreements with violent groups in the hope that insecurity will subside. The evidence, however, suggests the opposite. What is being presented as peace-building is, in reality, strategic capitulation.
Recent warnings by the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa, underscore a hard truth the country has been reluctant to confront. Negotiating with bandits does not bring safety. It rewards violence. In several local government areas in Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, and Sokoto states, armed groups attend “peace meetings” openly carrying weapons, arrive on motorcycles, and return to forest sanctuaries unchanged. Occasionally, a few abductees are released or farmers are allowed temporary access to their land. These gestures are mistaken for goodwill. They are not.
Empirical patterns from these states show that violence rarely ends after such agreements. At best, attacks decline briefly. Then the armed groups regroup, rearm, recruit, and resume violence—often with greater intensity. What communities experience is not reconciliation but a strategic pause that benefits criminals.
The deeper problem is one of sovereignty. When local authorities negotiate with armed non-state actors who retain their weapons, the state implicitly admits it no longer controls those territories. This normalizes a parallel system of authority in which criminals dictate terms. Political science is unambiguous on this point: a state that loses monopoly over the legitimate use of force is a state in recession, edging toward failure.
There are moral consequences as well. Victims watch their attackers walk free. Ransoms are paid repeatedly. Justice is absent. Trust in government collapses. In response, communities arm themselves, vigilante groups emerge, and ethnic and religious polarization deepens. What begins as a security shortcut becomes a social breakdown.
Even more troubling is the convergence between criminal banditry and jihadist networks. Repeated accommodation creates permissive environments for extremist organizations—ISWAP, ISIS-aligned groups, and Sahelian jihadists—to embed themselves in local conflicts, recruit youth, and expand operational reach. History from Afghanistan, Syria, and the Sahel shows that peace processes succeed only after armed groups are decisively weakened. Negotiations without defeat reward escalation.
Peace, therefore, must be understood as a sequence, not an event. It begins with coercive containment: denying armed groups territorial sanctuaries, cutting supply chains, dominating forests and ungoverned spaces, and restoring civil authority. Negotiation can only follow disarmament, accountability, and the reassertion of state power.
Making peace with undefeated bandits is not pragmatism. It is surrender by another name. And Nigeria cannot afford it.
