General Oluyede and theology…

Nigeria stands on a precipice where the line between protector and predator has not only blurred, but has been erased.

The recent elevation of Lieutenant General Olufemi Olatubosun Oluyede to the position of Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) has been welcomed by some with hopes of a tactical breakthrough. Instead, General Oluyede appears to have taken the same “poisoned chalice” that claimed the legacy of his predecessors, from Buratai to Musa.

It is a chalice overflowing with trillions of naira, brewed in the dark vats of “rehabilitation” and served as a death sentence for the victims of terrorists and the Nigerian people.

■ Perversion of the parable of the prodigal son

​In a shocking display of scriptural negligence, General Oluyede recently invoked the biblical parable of the prodigal son to justify the reabsorption of “repentant” terrorists into the fold of the state.

Let’s be clear: the prodigal son was a rebellious young man who squandered an inheritance by living profligately; he was not a butcher who beheaded children, enslaved women, and razed entire ancestral villages in a campaign with genocidal intent.

​Identifying a mass murderer with a repentant son is not only a theological error; it is a strategic betrayal. When the military hierarchy treats the massacre of thousands of people as a “misunderstanding” that can be cured with a professional seminar and a government salary, they do not practice forgiveness. They are practicing internal sabotage.

​___ The high cost of cuddles

​Under the watch of successive military leaderships, we have witnessed a disconcerting paradox: the more money invested in the non-kinetic rehabilitation of terrorists, the more frequently our military generals and infantrymen are slaughtered like chickens.

This policy of “pampering” has created a Trojan horse within the armed forces. By reinstating those who have for years been ideologically conditioned to destroy the Nigerian state, the military has effectively subordinated its command structure to the very forces it swore to neutralize.

The trillions of naira meant for security have become a transaction currency. It seems more profitable for the Nigerian state to “manage” an insurgency rather than defeat it. While millions of victims languish in unrecognized displacement camps – the existence of which is denied by the very UN bodies that validate government narratives – their attackers are fed, clothed and rearmed with the legitimacy of the state.
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■ A government in virtual collapse

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to power in 2023 on a primary security plane. Today that board is rotten. If the administration’s only response to the sophisticated resource-based genocide that is sweeping across Nigeria’s hereditary lands is the rehabilitation of the perpetrators, then the administration itself is complicit in the ruin of the nation.

Army captures 15 suspected oil thieves at unloading point of Dangote refinery in Lagos

We are witnessing the virtual collapse of the Nigerian state. This is no longer an academic warning; it is a visible reality for the millions of displaced people and the thousands of deaths. When $9 billion in minerals are looted every year from lands reclaimed by militia massacres, the reason is no longer religious extremism, but corporate sanctioning by the state.

​___ The turning point

​Nigeria is in a state of existential vertigo. If General Oluyede and the Tinubu administration continue to prioritize the welfare of “repentant” terrorists over the survival of their victims, something will give way before the 2027 general elections.

A nation that rewards its butchers and ignores its teachers – like the heroic Mrs. Hanatu, who teaches children in the rubble of villages the United Nations says don’t exist – cannot endure. The poisoned chalice of rehabilitation is not a path to peace; it’s a suicide pact.

Nigeria does not need an army that quotes the Bible to justify impunity; it needs a military that understands that the primary duty of the State is the unyielding protection of the innocent and the absolute elimination of those who would destroy them.

The clock is not ticking; it’s amazing.

■ Erasmus Ikhide contributed to this piece via: [email protected]

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