There comes a time in the life of a nation when silence becomes betrayal. That time, in the Nigerian context, is now. We can no longer pretend. We can no longer speak in half-truths or dance around the burning bush while our people are slaughtered, displaced, extorted, and humiliated every day by those who wear uniforms, uniforms funded by the same suffering taxpayers whose lives mean nothing to them.
It is time to say it as it is: bandits, custom officers, and the Nigerian military are working hand in hand. What we are witnessing in Nigeria is not just a failure of security, it is a deliberate orchestration of terror with the state as an accomplice. The line between bandits and officials has been permanently blurred. When criminals wear uniforms and uniforms protect criminals, who then will protect the people?
The same military that opened fire on peaceful, unarmed #EndSARS protesters at Lekki Toll Gate, young Nigerians carrying nothing but their voices, flags, and hope, is the same military that turns a blind eye to terrorists and criminal herdsmen rampaging through villages. It is the same military that mistakenly bombs IDP camps but never mistakenly bombs terrorist enclaves. If the Nigerian military could summon such brutality and precision against peaceful citizens, then it is not a far-fetched claim to say that they are comfortable collaborating with bandits. After all, what is a bandit if not a man who uses force to terrorize the innocent? What makes one a criminal and the other a soldier when they both oppress the same people?
We must look deeper. In many border communities, reports from residents are clear: custom officers work in alliance with criminal groups who smuggle arms, drugs, and other contraband. The checkpoints that are supposed to ensure national security have become extortion stations. Goods are seized not to protect the economy but to enrich a few greedy men in uniform. Vehicles carrying food, farm produce, and sometimes medicine are harassed and detained. Meanwhile, the same customs officers turn a blind eye when trucks filled with arms or stolen oil pass through with coded blessings. They know. They are part of it. And in the rare case when one of them is caught, the institution rallies to cover it up.
Let us be honest: Nigeria is not suffering from insecurity, it is suffering from internal sabotage. The state is no longer neutral. The state is complicit. This is a system where those who swore to protect the constitution now violate it with impunity. A system where the military behaves like an occupying force rather than a national defense. A system where police and customs are more interested in daily return than protecting citizens. In such a system, bandits are not the real enemies. The real enemies are those in government offices and military barracks who have chosen power over humanity, position over conscience.
There is an evil pact between the criminals on bikes and the criminals in government. One wears rags, the other wears camouflage. One kidnaps from the bush, the other from the podium. But their mission is the same: to extract wealth from the poor, to keep the people in fear, and to ensure that no real freedom is ever achieved.
When we say Nigeria is bleeding, it is not just poetic exaggeration. It is literal. Villages in Kaduna, Zamfara, Benue, Plateau, Niger, and Sokoto are becoming killing fields. Farmers can no longer go to their farms. Children are kidnapped in schools with ease. Whole communities are paying taxes to bandits while the government stands aside, watching. And when citizens protest or raise their voices, the guns of the Nigerian state are turned against them.
Who trained these bandits? Who supplied their arms? Who grants them freedom of movement across checkpoints? Who gives them access to intelligence and allows them to communicate freely? Who shelters them when they disappear after a killing spree? We all know the answer. If the military and customs were serious, banditry would be crushed in weeks. But they are not serious, because the bandits are not strangers. They are part of the family. They are the illegitimate children of a broken system that feeds on chaos.
The time has come for Nigerians to rise beyond tribal lines and religious sentiments and ask hard questions. Because tomorrow, it could be your village. Your family. Your turn. Let us stop pretending that change will come from within the rotten structures of the state. The solution will not come from Abuja or from political appointments. It will come from the resistance of the people, the awakening of the youth, the boldness of the truth-tellers, and the solidarity of the oppressed.
No amount of silence will save us now. Every Nigerian must become a reporter, an organizer, a resistor, and a revolutionary. The system is not broken, it was built this way. And what was built to destroy must be destroyed to be rebuilt.
Let the collaborators in uniform know this: we see you. We know you. And the people will remember your names when justice finally arrives. Because it will.
Nigeria must be free, not just from bandits in the bush, but from the bandits in the barracks and the bandits in the bureaucracy.
History is watching.
And so are we.
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