Recent news updates from Defence Headquarters show that the end of days of terror of North West bandits might be in sight. The vow of the Nigerian Armed Forces to capture Bello Turji, the daredevil bandit warlord in the North West axis, could be realised sooner than later, judging by the military’s bulletins about its exploits.

Many “commanders” of the bandit outfit, particularly Turji’s deputy, Aminu Kanawa, and scores of his fighters, have reportedly been killed. The bandits are in disarray, and they have been forced to abandon their abducted captives in the face of onslaughts by troops of the Nigerian Army’s “Operation Hadarin Daji” and “Operation Forest Sanity” in the North West.

Though the capture or elimination of Turji will only be a step further towards ending insecurity in the North West, Nigerians are happy with the Military. Hopes are rising, once again, that insecurity due to terrorism, which has wracked the nation since 2009, might be coming to an end.

We also commend the Armed Forces and urge them not to relent until terrorists, bandits, armed herdsmen, kidnappers and other forms of heinous criminals are eliminated from our forests and farmlands, and ungoverned spaces recovered from them. Nigeria can never make any progress towards addressing food insecurity and safety in our local communities, highways and schools until law and order are restored, and lawbreakers brought to justice.

We need to remind the Armed Forces that this is not the first time we are pushing our armed enemies to wall. The stubborn case of Boko Haram’s Abubakar Shekau is still fresh in the mind. The Armed Forces announced his “killing” several times until we finally heard from him no more. Indeed, Shekau did not go down until he was able to export Boko Haram terror to Niger State and creating an enabling environment for the Turji terrorist gang. We did not do enough to prevent the virus from sprouting in another part of the country.

It seems we did not learn our lesson from that ugly experience, because reports from the South West indicate that the bandit terrorists are relocating there and other parts of the South. Gani Adams, the Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, has been complaining bitterly that the South West governors are aloof to the alarms that his Oodua People’s Congress, OPC, and hunters’ groups have been raising.

The Military alone cannot solve our insecurity. It is the job of governments at all levels, the security agencies, police and community vigilante outfits to occupy every ungoverned space freed by the Military. Otherwise, the terrorists will simply move into them and start all over again.

This vicious circle must be broken. It is our collective responsibility. (Vanguard Editorial)