Soludo and Radda’s Candid Confessions on Homegrown Terror By Tahir Ahmad
While scrolling through my Facebook feed recently, a headline gave me pause: “Igbo criminals, not Fulani herdsmen, behind South-East killings.” It wasn’t a clickbait caption or the rant of a fringe commentator. It was a statement by a sitting governor—Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo of Anambra State—captured in a viral video clip.
Shocked by this unexpected candour, I soon came across another jarring report: “90% of bandits terrorising Katsina live among us – Governor Radda.” Two governors, from opposite ends of the country, confronting a shared truth. Not pointing fingers outward, but inward.
Governor Soludo made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Maryland, USA, where he addressed Ndi Anambra in the diaspora. While presenting his three-year stewardship, he declared that 99.99 percent of those arrested for kidnappings, killings, and other violent crimes in Anambra—and across the South-East—were Igbos. Not Fulani herdsmen, as the dominant narrative often suggests.
In a country where “killer herdsmen” has become a convenient label, this wasn’t just bold—it was a direct challenge to a culture of scapegoating. Soludo wasn’t absolving others; he was urging his people to confront uncomfortable realities. He asked us to stop cloaking our wounds in someone else’s skin.
One phrase from his speech stuck with me: these criminals often call themselves “liberators.” I had to look it up again. A liberator, by definition, is one who frees others from oppression. The irony of self-proclaimed liberators who burn homes, take lives, and demand ransoms from grieving families is chilling.
Interestingly, Soludo’s truth-telling found resonance far from the South-East. In a television interview, Governor Dikko Umar Radda of Katsina State made a similarly unsettling confession: that the majority of bandits terrorising his state were not foreign elements but local men. “They are not aliens,” he said. “We know their fathers and their grandfathers. They are living with us.”
Governor Radda acknowledged that operational control rests with federal agencies, but his administration has taken proactive steps. Through a local security initiative, youths from affected areas are being recruited to help gather intelligence and assist in anti-bandit operations. The logic is clear: these young men know the terrain, the players, and the patterns. Community involvement, the governor stressed, is vital to dismantling the internal support networks that sustain criminality.
Read Also:
He described the crisis as one “from within,” highlighting the role of local collaborators, including urban informants who provide intelligence to bandit cells. The image is distressing: the danger is not across borders, but across the street.
All of this reminded me of a principle that has guided my journey in journalism. It’s a lesson I learned early on from our Managing Editor at the PRNigeria Centre, Mr. AbdulRahman AbdulRaheem—fondly known as Mr. RR. During editorial meetings, he would caution us: “Never fall into the trap of ethnic profiling. Criminals have no tribe. Violence wears no native attire.”
He often said, “You cannot report a story truthfully if you first decide who to blame.” That principle has shaped my perspective. Good journalism isn’t about echoing popular sentiments; it’s about uncovering the truth—even when it’s painful, even when it implicates people who look like us or live among us.
Because when we tag an entire group based on the actions of a few, we are not informing—we are inciting. It may drive web traffic and stoke outrage, but it also deepens the divisions that threaten our nation’s very foundation.
The real question we must grapple with is this: how do we reconcile with the fact that those who inflict terror on our people may be our own sons, neighbours, and kin?
The messages from Governors Soludo and Radda are clear and courageous. They remind us that the so-called outsiders we often blame are, in fact, our own. That truth is uncomfortable, but necessary. These are the conversations we need to have—beyond the noise, beyond politics, and beyond the veil of ethnic bias.
Their remarks, whether embraced or rejected by the public, demand a reckoning. We cannot keep outsourcing blame while ignoring the rot within. We cannot confront insecurity with narratives built on fear or prejudice. We must face the truth—especially when it sounds like our own name.
Every ethnic group has criminals. Every community harbours both saints and sinners. Our collective task—whether as journalists, public officials, or ordinary citizens—is to learn how to tell the difference.
Let us stop dressing tribal prejudice as national concern. Let us stop recycling myths just because they are familiar or comforting. Nigeria does not need more scapegoats. What it needs—desperately—is honesty, accountability, and the courage to confront ourselves.
And sometimes, all it takes is one leader, or one journalist, willing to speak the truth others won’t.
Tahir Ahmad writes from the PRNigeria Centre, Abuja. He can be reached via: [email protected].
