Kill Them: They Deserve to Be Killed -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

“A soul for a soul” is an age-long adage. It is axiomatic. It speaks to justice, revenge, and sacrifice — like “an eye for an eye” retributive justice. The core idea is that a life deliberately and wickedly taken must be paid for with another life. Not just any life, but with the very life of the one who wickedly took it.

This adage was treated as a self-evident truth about balance by people of old; it was thus unquestionable. However, in most modern states today, especially modern democracies, “a soul for a soul” is acknowledged only in the sense that humans intuitively understand the need for balance. It is argued that civilization exists because we decided not to enforce it literally. I will revisit this shortly.

We live in a country where elected rulers coddle terrorists by engaging them in “peace talks,” whatever that means. We also live in a country where, after killing thousands of victims, terrorists are granted “amnesty” by the government — or is it the government inviting them for amnesty? I do not understand what that means.

It is also in Nigeria that we find what is probably the most oxymoronic phrase in the English language: “repentant terrorists.” I do not know whether the Nigerian government or the terrorists coined it. It is an oxymoron.

What is even more appalling is seeing clerics who should be at war with terrorists sitting side by side with them in the name of “peace.” It is also traumatizing that terrorists who oppress and kill are being rehabilitated with taxpayers’ money and even allegedly employed to serve in the military, while victims of terror who truly need rehabilitation are left to live in misery. This has driven some to commit suicide. What kind of country is this, and why are we so unfortunate to have rulers with this kind of thinking?

Our religion teaches that repentance should be between a sinner and God and has three basic conditions. One: in the case of repentance from terrorism, one must regret being a terrorist. Two: one must vow and resolve — with strong determination — never to commit a terrorist act again for the rest of one’s life. Three: one must restore people’s rights where such rights are involved.

A repentant terrorist, if such exists, would return ransom money collected to victims or to victims’ families. If what is involved goes beyond people’s rights to include people’s lives, “repentant terrorists” should be required to pay blood money to the families of the deceased. That is repentance.

If restoration is not possible, a repentant terrorist should quietly abandon terrorism and begin to live a normal life full of remorse. He need not announce to anyone that he was once a terrorist who repented. All he needs to do is to increase acts of righteousness and consistently seek God’s forgiveness for the rest of his life.

In Islam, what I have explained above is basic. One need not be a scholar to know this; one only needs basic Islamic knowledge. It is this basic Islamic knowledge that eludes some Muslim clerics. That is why it is insulting and nauseating to see them holding “peace talks,” not even with so-called repentant terrorists, but with trigger-happy terrorists still clinging to their guns.

What has happened to these clerics and their Islamic knowledge? What makes them think that dining with agents of Satan will appease them and lead to peace? Where, in all their scholarship, did they find the notion that Satan and his agents understand peace or speak peace? Peace is not in their vocabulary. It does not exist in their dictionary.

So far, what has “peace talk” achieved? The more these criminals are engaged in peace talks, the more they strike, recently even making imams their targets. The ugly reports are there in our dailies.

However, all hope is not lost. We learned that on Wednesday the House of Representatives joined the Senate in calling on the Federal Government to end the rehabilitation and reintegration of repentant terrorists, kidnappers, and bandits. The resolution followed the adoption of a motion sponsored by Ademorin Kuye (APC, Lagos). Though Kuye is from Lagos, he spoke with sense, applying reasoning, critical thinking, and logic to address a calamity that engulfs the North and is gradually spreading southward. One wonders if our northern lawmakers are merely benchwarmers.

Kuye’s motion seems to have awakened Yusuf Gagdi (APC, Plateau). Gagdi supported the motion, arguing that continued payment of ransom has encouraged kidnappers and bandits to sustain their activities. He fiercely argued that anyone who takes an innocent life deserves the death penalty and called for an immediate end to the government’s Operation Safe Corridor rehabilitation program for arrested insurgents, kidnappers, and bandits.

On Tuesday, the Senate also called on the Federal Government to discontinue the rehabilitation programme for repentant Boko Haram members, which was launched in 2016 under Operation Safe Corridor. I have always considered it a useless program.

Kuye further lamented: “Those who invade communities, kidnap innocent Nigerians, and kill security personnel do not deserve rehabilitation.”

So what do they deserve? Gagdi put it bluntly, and his bluntness is commendable: “Kill them. Anybody that kills deserves to be killed, except in cases like a motor accident.”

Gagdi added: “I don’t see any rationale behind rehabilitating a criminal who is killing people. When arrested, you rehabilitate him, and then he becomes an informant within our own security system.

“Government should not rehabilitate killers. There is no reason whatsoever for kidnappers, bandits, or Boko Haram to be rewarded by being trained and reintegrated into our security system. The government should stop the rehabilitation of arrested criminals.”

Back to the argument that civilization exists because we decided not to enforce “a soul for a soul” literally. This explanation is too weak to be taken seriously. Yet unfortunately, that is what is practiced in most “advanced” countries across the globe today. The reality, however, is that the non-enforcement of death for killers is the reason killing has become an enterprise — a thriving enterprise.

In Nigeria, for instance, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) estimated that Nigerians paid about ₦2.23 trillion in ransom in just one year, between May 2023 and April 2024. Between July 2009 and March 19, 2026, no fewer than 190,150 Nigerians have reportedly been killed by bandits, Boko Haram insurgents, and suspected armed herdsmen. That figure is far more than the population of Seychelles, a country in Africa with a population of 108,263.

We find in our scriptures the “eye for an eye and a soul for a soul” provision (Qur’an 5:45; Matthew 5:38–42; Genesis 9:6; Exodus 21:23). We also read in the Qur’an that terrorists like Boko Haram, bandits, and kidnappers should not only be killed but should be killed mercilessly and/or punished exemplarily (Qur’an 5:33).

Contrary to the widely held notion that literal application of “a soul for a soul” destroys civilization, we read in scripture that killing terrorists saves lives and preserves civilization. But this can only be understood by those endowed with wisdom — wisdom that the advocates of dialogue with bandits among the clerics lack.

This is how the Qur’an puts it: “And there is life for you in legal retribution, O people of understanding, that you may become righteous” (Qur’an 2:179). One cannot be righteous and have sympathy for bandits. This is an indisputable fact. Whoever disputes it only exposes themselves to ridicule. It is not only scriptural wisdom; it is also common sense.

The government should stop using taxpayers’ money to rehabilitate killers. Victims need rehabilitation, not criminals. Our ethnically biased clerics should stop showing sympathy to bandits. It is a disgrace to Islamic scholarship.

The Nigerian government should act decisively against terrorists. It should kill them. They deserve to be killed.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com