By Sa’adiyyah Adebisi Hassan
A Pakistani imam in Italy spent 29 years serving as a religious leader, living in a government-provided house, earning a government-funded salary. Then one Friday, he preached that fighting those who do not believe in Islam is an obligation.
The very next day not next month, not after an inquiry Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ordered his deportation. The man, his wife, and his children were put on a plane back to Pakistan.
That’s how a serious nation protects its people: zero tolerance for hate, no hiding behind clerical robes, no fear of “religious sensitivity.”
Now shift your gaze to Nigeria a country where the same poison is not only tolerated but applauded by the establishment.
The Nigerian Tragedy: Terrorism with a Microphone
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi a cleric with open access to bandits in the forests has repeatedly told the nation that “the best solution is negotiation.” He warns that bombing bandits would “worsen killings.”
Read that again.
A man who walks freely into bandits’ camps, converses with murderers and kidnappers, returns to town and lectures the government about how to treat them not with law, not with justice, but with dialogue and compensation.
In Italy, a cleric preaches hate and gets deported.
In Nigeria, a cleric defends terrorists and gets airtime.
What Does That Tell You?
If, as widely alleged, the Federal Government is paying or “rehabilitating” bandits, and if a sheikh constantly acts as their spokesman, what does that tell you?
It tells you the state has blurred the line between authority and anarchy.
It tells you Nigeria has built a sanctuary where crime wears religion as armour, and criminals become “stakeholders.”
When the State Loses Its Moral Compass
This is a country where:
Bandits kidnap children from schools and are rewarded with “amnesty.”
Soldiers die in ambushes, but the killers are offered “reintegration.”
A cleric justifies the killers, yet security agencies look away.
What Italy saw as an existential threat, Nigeria sees as an “opinion.” What Italy punished, Nigeria pampers.
If the Nigerian government truly believes that paying and negotiating with terrorists will bring peace, then it has learned nothing from history. You cannot negotiate with those who live on ransom and blood. You only embolden them.
The Cost of Cowardice
Every ransom paid funds the next kidnapping.
Every sermon unchallenged emboldens the next killer.
Every silence from the state deepens the wound of the victims.
A nation that refuses to confront its demons will be consumed by them.
A government that chooses appeasement over justice signs the death warrant of its citizens.
The Italian Lesson Nigeria Refuses to Learn
Italy’s action was swift, lawful, and unapologetic.
Nigeria’s response to extremism is timid, confused, and compromised. Until the country grows the spine to call treachery by its name, and hold its enablers accountable, there will be no peace.
A nation that rewards terror will one day find terror in power. And when that day comes, there will be no forest left to hide in.
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