“Nigeria’s Three Actors: The Government, the Victims and the Gunmen — An Exclusive Understanding of Terror in Today’s Nigeria”

Because his death is bigger than one crime.

It represents the collapse of the social contract between the Nigerian state and ordinary citizens.

Oyedokun was not a politician surrounded by police escorts. He was not part of the wealthy elite protected by convoys and government security. He was a teacher — one of millions of ordinary Nigerians who still believe that despite corruption, hardship, and insecurity, honest work and lawful living can still build a meaningful life.

But modern Nigeria has become a place where those who obey the law increasingly suffer the most.

To understand the crisis properly, Nigerians must first understand the existence of what can best be described as three actors in the country’s current reality.

The first actor is the ruling and political class. This group controls power, state institutions, public wealth, and security structures. They dominate Abuja and the corridors of influence across the country. They move with armed protection, live behind guarded gates, and remain largely insulated from the daily fears ordinary Nigerians face.

For decades, this class has overseen widespread corruption, failed governance, unemployment, collapsing infrastructure, weak education, poor policing, and deep inequality. The conditions that helped create anger, frustration, and instability across large parts of the country did not emerge naturally. They were produced by years of political failure.

The second actor is the ordinary Nigerian citizen. These are teachers, traders, farmers, artisans, nurses, civil servants, students, and struggling families. They are victims of both corruption and insecurity. They pay the price for failed governance while also suffering from kidnappings, terrorism, inflation, and violence.

Michael Oyedokun belonged to this class.

He represented lawful Nigeria — the people still trying to survive through patience, work, and hope.

Then comes the third actor: the armed groups. Bandits, terrorists, kidnappers, violent militias, and criminal gangs. Many of these groups originally emerged from the same suffering environment as ordinary Nigerians. Poverty, state neglect, social exclusion, weak education, ethnic tensions, and economic collapse helped create the conditions from which many violent actors developed.

But somewhere along the way, the struggle became distorted.

The weapons taken up against oppression and abandonment were no longer directed primarily at the political structures responsible for national collapse. Instead, those weapons turned mostly against fellow victims — poor villagers, farmers, students, travellers, worshippers, and teachers.

The people being kidnapped are not governors.

The people being slaughtered are not ministers.

The people being beheaded are not members of the political elite.

They are ordinary Nigerians.

That is why the death of a teacher carries enormous symbolic meaning. A teacher represents belief in society. A teacher represents education, peace, patience, and the hope that knowledge can still improve lives in a broken nation.

Yet in today’s Nigeria, the teacher becomes the prey.

At the centre of this moral crisis are the public comments made over the years by controversial Islamic cleric Ahmad Gumi. Gumi repeatedly called for negotiations, amnesty, and understanding for armed bandits. He described some bandits as “shy people” and consistently framed many of them as victims of exclusion and insecurity.

While Gumi argued that he was seeking peace through dialogue, many Nigerians felt his words often sounded more compassionate toward gunmen than toward civilians murdered by them.

For grieving communities, especially families who lost loved ones to kidnappings and massacres, such statements became difficult to accept.

The outrage intensified when similar language appeared from within government circles.

National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu also drew criticism after referring to violent actors as “our brothers” during discussions about reconciliation and reintegration strategies.

Supporters of Ribadu argued that he was speaking about deradicalisation and national healing. But many ordinary Nigerians interpreted the statement differently. To them, it sounded like emotional softness toward armed men at a time innocent citizens remained exposed and unprotected.

This perception problem is now damaging public trust in the Nigerian state.

Many citizens increasingly believe there are now two different Nigerias: one Nigeria for the protected elite and another Nigeria for vulnerable citizens abandoned to both poverty and terror.

The powerful discuss reconciliation inside secured government buildings while villagers bury victims killed by gunmen operating freely across forests and highways.

That contradiction is becoming impossible for many Nigerians to ignore.

Michael Oyedokun’s death exposes this painful divide with brutal clarity.

A teacher obeyed the law, worked honestly, and served society. Yet he ended up kidnapped and killed in a country that spends billions annually on security.

At the same time, national conversations sometimes appear more focused on understanding terrorists than protecting ordinary citizens.

Nigeria must now confront an uncomfortable truth.

No country survives when criminals become negotiable while innocent people become disposable.

The nation cannot continue treating law-abiding citizens as collateral damage while endlessly debating the grievances of men carrying rifles.

Because although the teacher and the bandit may both have emerged from the same broken Nigeria, only one chose to educate children while the other chose violence.

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