After what seemed like a brief sabbatical, the Boys are back. Back to their beat. Back to bestiality. Back as merchants of pain. Terrorists, bandits, gunmen, unknown gunmen, kidnappers, abductors, assailants. We have coined several labels to latch to their bloodied lapels. But whatever name we give them, the darkling reality is that they are back after a break, albeit a short break.

Like the Biblical demons chased out of a human, they have returned with more vengeful and menacing verve. And their article of trade remains terror. They strike terror into the hearts of Nigerians. Their currency is fear. They trade in fear. Bolstered by Nigerian elite liars and leadership incompetence, terrorists have refused to lay down their arms. They fear no foe. The military, para-military, make-shift security configurations called vigilantes, all appear limp and gimp before this rag-tag army of terrorists.

Nigeria, yes, Nigeria is now a globally-certified terrorist nation, sitting perilously among the top 10 terror nations of the world. It’s an ignoble club. In the 2022 Global Terrorism Index, Nigeria sits pretty at Number 6, only worse than the likes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Burkina Faso and Syria. Mali, Niger, Colombia and North Korea (Imagine that!) are adjudged better than Nigeria in terms of terrorism and its associated by-products of death, destruction and economic asphyxiation.

By the time, the 2023 index is released in a matter of weeks, who knows, Nigeria may have taken a plunge deeper into the abys of terror-struck nations. The wound of terror festers. The sore is repugnantly virulent. And that’s because the leadership elite is adept at living in denial. Under President Goodluck Jonathan, an ineffective leader who would rather pamper a mosquito than kill it, terror was strongly localized in the north east, with occasional incursion into north central particularly the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).  Rather than tame the beast of terror, Jonathan muddled through the snaky labyrinth of leadership until he was rigged out of power in an election he conducted. Under him, terror struck in unusual places including the United Nations’ office, Police Headquarters and Eagle Square which sits within the precinct of the Three-Arms-Zone, the nation’s epicentre of power. Rather than confront the behemoth of terror, a frazzled and terrified Jonathan ran into the deeper recesses of Aso Rock; afraid to dare, afraid to die. He left office with a testimonial scripted in crimson red of human blood, a legacy of terror-induced deaths and a historical record of the highest number of victims in one kidnap episode as recorded in the case of the over 200 Chibok girls. In Jonathan and under his watch, Nigerians witnessed the worst(?) leadership in the face of terror.  What a record of shame!

And if Nigerians thought they had seen the worst in Jonathan, it’s because they had no idea what was coming under President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator sold to Nigerians as a democrat. This writer had warned Nigerians against voting Buhari. The reasons were plain. Buhari will always make an incompetent leader in a democracy; he’s bigoted religiously and ethnically; he lacks the mental aptitude to lead in the 21^st century. And hey, he did not disappoint. He acted all his traits and left behind a legacy of debt, mindless corruption, a bifurcated polity split along ethnic lines, a deeply ruined economy with tear-away inflation. He had some brilliant policies but they were badly executed, typical of him. Above all, the same Buhari who promised to stamp out terrorism in a matter of months ended up deregulating terror across the nation. Under Buhari, the terror scourge that was once restricted to the north east and parts of the north central spread to all parts of Nigeria. Scores of Dapchi girls were abducted in a cruel play-back of the Chibok episode. What we did under Jonathan, we can jolly well execute under Buhari, was the unsung lyric of the terrorists. Nowhere was safe. For the first time in the nation’s annals, terrorists ran riot in the south west, north west, south east and south-south. Emboldened by a Buhari inertia, they bombed trains, bombed military formations and strongholds, committed pogrom in Benue, Plateau and just about anywhere they planted their murderous feet. They killed the Obi of my town, Ubulu-Uku, in Delta State in the most brazen and brutal affront on a peaceful people. Nothing was sacred to the terror merchants. They attacked worship centres where they killed and maimed Nigerians. They waylaid people on highways and byways and demanded and got ransom. It was good business for the kidnappers and for those who elected to be their negotiators. The negotiators turned into brokerage service providers. Such was the business of terror and it bloomed under Buhari.

Many had feared that terrorists would disrupt the 2023 general elections. This did not happen. Instead, the terrorists and their collaborators within the Nigerian elite circle took a break. They allowed the elections to hold. They were truly in charge. And it shows they have the command and control lever over the nation’s security. Jonathan as President once lamented that Boko Haram terrorists and their sympathisers were in government, in the military and in other anti-crime agencies. He did not name them. As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Nigerians expected him to name and shame, even prosecute, the terror mandarins and their enablers in high places.

Both Jonathan and Buhari are long gone. Bola Ahmed Tinubu is now in charge. Encumbered on many fronts since May 29, 2023 when he fulfilled his now popular Emilokan (It’s my turn) battle cry, Tinubu has had to contend with inherited socio-economic scourge typified by high inflation, growing job losses and a widening gyre of poverty. But now, Tinubu has an even bigger challenge. The terror hounds who took a break to allow for elections are back. In the FCT, home to all the security agencies, the terrorists hound and pound villages, attack estates and residences, abduct family members, slaughter those they wish to kill if their loved ones get too stingy to pay their ransom. Such is the brute nature of life in Nigeria these past months. Terrorists are back from their momentary trip to hell. This time, they are not smiling.

President Tinubu must rise to the occasion. He must wear his garb as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. If Tinubu relapses into amnesia and leadership inertia like Jonathan and Buhari, terrorists will step up their game from kidnapping of ordinary citizens to the abduction of our leaders. No governor, Senator or minister should feel safe. For indeed, no one is safe anymore. This is why Tinubu must take a radical measure far different from the strategies of his predecessors that never worked. If it means firing some entitled principalities within the security apparatchik for Nigeria to have peace, so be it. Nigerians are tired of burials and mass burials. It’s an unhealthy essence for parents to keep burying their children and for children to keep losing their parents and benefactors to terrorists from Hades.

Mr. President, the boys are back. Arise and give them the beating they truly deserve. Nigerians are saying, Jagaban no gree for terrorists.