“When Did Confronting Terrorists Become a Political Offence?” Ejiofor Exposes Nigeria’s Northern Elite Hypocrisy
Human rights lawyer faults outrage against Tinubu’s alleged Christmas Day collaboration with the U.S., arguing that resistance to crushing terror enclaves reveals decades of calculated duplicity, not security failure.
Abuja, Nigeria – December 28, 2025
In a message titled “When the Fight Against Terrorism Becomes a Political Offence,” prominent human rights lawyer and lead counsel to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Barrister Ifeanyi Ejiofor, has delivered a scathing indictment of Northern political reactions to reports that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu collaborated with the United States to strike Fulani terrorist enclaves on Christmas Day.
He described the backlash as a damning exposure of Nigeria’s long-running “political economy of chaos.”
In a sharply worded statement, Ejiofor said the outrage and threats from Northern political organisations and power brokers to withdraw support for Tinubu ahead of the 2027 elections had stripped bare what he called the true character of insecurity in Northern Nigeria.
According to him, the decades-long violence attributed to Boko Haram, ISWAP, Fulani bandits, and related extremist networks is less a failure of intelligence or military capacity than a triumph of political duplicity.
Ejiofor argued that the real scandal was not the alleged collaboration with the United States to neutralise internationally recognised terrorist groups, but the fact that such action had become politically offensive to influential actors.
“What clearer evidence could one possibly demand? Northern political organisations and influential power-brokers have now found their voices, openly threatening to withdraw political support from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the run-up to the 2027 general elections, not because he has failed to act, but precisely because he dared to act.
His supposed sin? Collaborating with the United States Government to neutralise enclaves of internationally recognised terrorist organisations. One is left to wonder: since when did confronting terrorists become a political offence?”
He questioned how confronting terrorism could provoke political anger rather than national relief, insisting that the reaction itself was evidence that insecurity in the North has been cynically managed and weaponised for political leverage.
“What has long been presented as a security crisis is, in truth, a carefully sustained system,” he stated, suggesting that chaos has become a resource, not a problem, for certain political interests.
In his view, the current uproar only confirms long-held suspicions that powerful actors benefit from the persistence of terror and instability.
“If the annihilation of terrorist strongholds provokes political outrage rather than national relief, then perhaps the mask has finally slipped. Do we require any further persuasion to accept that what has long been sold as a “security crisis” in the north, is, in truth, a carefully managed political economy of chaos?”
The senior lawyer urged President Tinubu to muster the political will to proceed decisively, unshackled by threats, blackmail, or the familiar calculus of political consequences.
He called on the president to activate the full machinery of the law against terrorism and those enabling it, regardless of regional or electoral sensitivities.
Ejiofor warned that Nigeria has for years been perched on a volatile foundation, sustained by denial and expediency.
He stressed that the country’s survival now hinges on whether those in power choose courage over convenience, and decisive action over the pretence that the danger does not exist.
“Nigeria, it must be said, is not merely sitting on a keg of gunpowder, she has been there for years. What remains to be seen is whether those entrusted with power possess the courage to finally defuse it, or the convenience to continue pretending it does not exist.”
His intervention has added a legal and moral edge to an already heated national debate, reframing the controversy not as a question of foreign collaboration, but as a test of Nigeria’s willingness to finally confront the interests that thrive on bloodshed and insecurity.
