Negotiating With Terrorists: Did the Nigerian Government Capitulate? -By Oluwafemi Popoola

The debate over negotiating with terrorists is hardly new in Nigeria. Sometimes, old arguments return wearing new clothes. In March 2020, Femi Adesina, who was then Special Adviser to late President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, penned an article titled “Negotiating with Terrorists and Bandits.” Reading it today, six years later, the piece carries an almost uncanny relevance. While defending Buhari’s readiness to consider dialogue with Boko Haram, Adesina posed a question that has refused to disappear from Nigeria’s security debate: “Does negotiation mean capitulation? Does it mean weakness?” His answer was unequivocal: “Not necessarily so.”

Adesina argued that wars do not always end on the battlefield. Sometimes, he wrote, the combatants eventually sit around a table. He pointed to America’s negotiations with the Taliban and the eventual military defeat of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers. His conclusion was simple: keep every option on the table. If force brings peace, use force. If negotiation brings peace, negotiate.

There is nothing inherently absurd about that argument. Indeed, history supports it. Governments have negotiated with enemies they once declared impossible to negotiate with. The United States negotiated with the Taliban. Britain eventually negotiated with the Irish Republican Army through the wider Northern Ireland peace process. Colombia negotiated with the FARC after decades of bloodshed. The difference, however, is that a serious peace process is not merely an agreement to stop shooting for a few weeks. It involves disarmament, verification, accountability, political guarantees and, ultimately, a credible transition from violence to politics.

That is why the latest report by The New Humanitarian deserves neither blind acceptance nor casual dismissal.

On September 7, the publication reported that the Nigerian government had entered into a secret ceasefire with the Boko Haram faction led by Ibrahim Bakura Doro, following negotiations connected to the release of 360 civilians abducted from Ngoshe in Borno State. According to the report, the truce had been in effect since June and had contributed to an unusual lull in attacks in parts of southern Borno. The publication also reported an alleged ₦5 billion ransom, a claim the Nigerian authorities have denied. The government has not publicly acknowledged the ceasefire. That matters.

But something else matters too. For roughly three months, communities in parts of the North-East have experienced relative calm. The New Humanitarian says residents and humanitarian workers observed the lull, while its September 9 follow-up traced the broader history of Nigerian attempts to open channels of communication with jihadist groups. Al Jazeera has independently reported the alleged ceasefire while noting that Abuja publicly rejects negotiations with Boko Haram.

Coincidences are innocent until examined closely. Sometimes they are merely accidents; at other times, they are clues pointing towards a story we have not yet fully understood. Historians are particularly cautious about treating events in isolation because patterns often reveal more than individual incidents. J.H. Elliott, one of the great historians of early-modern Europe, devoted much of his work to understanding how seemingly separate developments could converge to produce larger historical consequences. That caution is useful here. The relative calm in parts of the North-East, the reported secret contacts with Boko Haram and the proximity of the 2027 elections may all have perfectly innocent explanations. But when three politically significant developments arrive at roughly the same time, Nigerians have every right to ask whether coincidence is really the whole explanation.

So, what exactly has changed?

Nigeria has spent years talking, negotiating, mediating, rehabilitating and, occasionally, paying for the consequences of its inability to end the insurgency decisively. Chibok produced negotiations. Dapchi produced negotiations. There have been Swiss-mediated contacts, intermediaries, defection programmes and “non-kinetic” approaches. The latest New Humanitarian investigation argues that the government’s engagement with jihadists has a much longer history than its public rhetoric suggests. Yet after all these years, has Nigeria become substantially safer? That is where the argument becomes painful.

The insurgency that began in 2009 has evolved, fractured and reproduced itself. Shekau is dead. ISWAP emerged as a rival. Bakura Doro now leads JAS, according to the report. Yet violence remains entrenched. The UNDP has estimated that indirect deaths associated with the North-East conflict could reach about 350,000, a staggering reminder that insecurity kills not only through bullets and bombs but through hunger, displacement, disease and destroyed livelihoods.

So if negotiation has always been one of the cards on the table, Nigerians are entitled to ask: what have the previous cards achieved?

A temporary ceasefire can save lives. That is not insignificant. If negotiations prevented another village from being attacked or helped abducted civilians return home, one should not sneer at the lives saved. Government has a moral obligation to explore every lawful avenue capable of bringing citizens home alive. But peace has a dangerous counterfeit: silence.

A reduction in attacks does not necessarily mean the insurgency has been defeated. It may simply mean the insurgents have stopped firing temporarily. Malik Samuel, a conflict researcher quoted by The New Humanitarian, described the reported arrangement as potentially a tactical ceasefire that may benefit both sides without changing the trajectory of the war. That distinction is crucial.

A pause in military pressure can give insurgents time to reorganise, recruit, resupply and fortify their positions. If money was indeed transferred as ransom, the danger becomes even greater. Five billion naira is not merely a figure on paper. In the hands of an armed extremist organisation, money can become logistics, intelligence, weapons and mobility. And there is another problem: precedent.

If abducting hundreds of Nigerians can produce negotiations, cash and a cessation of military pressure, what message does that send to the next armed group contemplating a spectacular kidnapping? Terrorism thrives on leverage. If kidnapping becomes a currency with which the state can be compelled to negotiate, the kidnapping economy acquires a business model.

The alleged agreement also reportedly excludes ISWAP. That means even if Bakura Doro’s faction has lowered its weapons, another jihadist faction remains active around the Lake Chad region. In other words, Nigeria could be negotiating peace with one fire while another burns behind the house.

And then comes the timing.

Nigeria is approaching the 2027 general election. The New Humanitarian itself notes that security will be an important electoral issue and that President Bola Tinubu has announced plans to expand the military with additional recruits and divisions. Its September 9 analysis also quotes Fatima Akilu observing that Nigeria’s short political cycle means “eyes are always on the next election.” This is where suspicion naturally enters the room. Why now?

Why, after years of military campaigns, counterterrorism operations and promises to defeat insecurity, does a quieter North-East suddenly become politically urgent as elections approach?

Perhaps the answer is humanitarian. Perhaps military pressure alone has reached its limits. But there is another possibility Nigerians cannot be forbidden from considering: political calculation.

Nigeria should not confuse “non-kinetic” with “non-strategic”. A ceasefire must have an endgame. Where are the weapons? Where is the disarmament plan? Where is verification? What happens to commanders accused of atrocities? What happens to fighters who surrender? What guarantees exist for victims? And what prevents a faction from using the pause to prepare for another offensive?

Colombia’s negotiations with FARC eventually produced something far more ambitious than a temporary cessation of hostilities: a framework for disarmament, reintegration, verification and political transition. That is what separates a peace process from a breathing space.

Nigeria has been breathing for 17 years. Perhaps what we need now is not another pause, but a plan.

Femi Adesina was right about one thing: negotiation does not automatically mean capitulation. But negotiation can become capitulation when the state gives concessions without extracting disarmament, accountability and lasting peace in return. That is the question before President Tinubu’s government.

Did Nigeria negotiate from a position of strength? Or did Boko Haram discover that kidnapping Nigerians could bring the Nigerian government to the table?

Until Abuja answers those questions openly, the reported ceasefire will remain less a peace treaty than a mysterious silence over a war that has refused to die.

Oluwafemi Popoola is a Nigerian journalist, media strategist, and columnist. He can be reached via bromeo2013@gmail.com