CSGG Counter-Narrative on Prof. Usman Yusuf’s Statement on Fulani Banditry
CSGG NewsMedia
Thursday , 18th. December ,2025
The leadership of the Citizens Support for Good Governance (CSGG) a Coalition of Civil Society Groups unequivocally rejects the position attributed to Prof. Usman Yusuf describing armed bandits as “freedom fighters” and opposing decisive military action against them. Such assertions are not only dangerous but fundamentally contradict Nigeria’s constitution, established security doctrines, and the lived realities of millions of victims across the country.
Nigeria’s security crisis is not a religious, ethnic, or regional dispute. It is a clear case of organized criminal terrorism. Armed bandit groups have murdered thousands of Nigerians, displaced entire communities, destroyed livelihoods, abducted women and children, and crippled local economies across the North-West, North-Central, and beyond.
To reframe these criminal enterprises as “freedom fighters” is to erase the suffering of victims and normalize mass violence.
CSGG notes with grave concern that Prof. Yusuf’s argument collapses rational security analysis into sentiment, identity politics, and selective empathy. Dialogue, where applicable, has always been one of several tools in conflict resolution. However, dialogue with groups actively engaging in mass murder, kidnapping for ransom, arms trafficking, and territorial control cannot replace law enforcement and military responsibility. Nations do not negotiate their sovereignty away.
The position of the Honourable Minister of Defence, General Christopher Gwabin Musa, reflects global best practice in counter-terrorism:
No state tolerates armed non-state actors controlling territory
No government legitimizes terrorists by redefining them as activists
No serious security architecture abandons force when dialogue has been abused as a tactic to regroup, rearm, and expand criminal networks
The claim that military operations “only cause devastation” ignores the fact that bandits deliberately embed themselves within civilian populations, using villages as human shields. The responsibility for collateral suffering lies squarely with the terrorists who choose violence, not with the state that is constitutionally mandated to protect its citizens.
More troubling is the attempt to frame the issue as an ethnic defense suggesting that stopping Fulani bandits equates to targeting Fulani people. This narrative is false, divisive, and intellectually dishonest. Thousands of Fulani men, women, and children are themselves victims of banditry. Law-abiding Fulani communities have repeatedly called for protection against these same criminal gangs.
CSGG firmly states:
Killing innocent Nigerians is a crime, regardless of ethnicity
Carrying arms against the state is terrorism, not resistance
Defending or romanticizing bandits is morally indefensible and nationally harmful
Security networking thrives on clear moral boundaries. Dialogue cannot coexist with impunity. Peace cannot be built on the legitimization of terror. And governance cannot succeed when criminality is excused under the cloak of identity politics.
CSGG therefore stands fully with the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces of Nigeria, and all security agencies pursuing a lawful, intelligence-driven, and firm response to banditry and terrorism. Nigeria must not repeat the costly mistake of turning criminal violence into a negotiable enterprise.
The Nigerian state must remain resolute:
Terrorism is a crime.
Banditry is not activism.
National security is not optional.
History will not be kind to those who rationalize terror but it will remember those who stood firmly for justice, order, and the sanctity of Nigerian lives.
