By LANRE OGUNDIPE

A retired Defence spokesman is abducted alongside his wife.

Weeks pass.

The security agencies cannot rescue him.

He dies in captivity.

Then comes the most disturbing development of all.

The men who abducted him reportedly hand over his corpse to the Katsina State Government while his wife remains in captivity.

Something does not add up.

A nation must pause and ask itself difficult questions.

Not out of anger.

Not out of malice.

But out of concern for the authority and dignity of the state.

For years, Nigerians have been told that certain military operations cannot be undertaken because kidnappers and terrorists use captives as human shields. It is a difficult dilemma. No responsible government recklessly endangers innocent lives. Hostage rescue operations are among the most delicate undertakings in modern warfare.

Citizens understand this.

But citizens are equally entitled to ask:

If the hideout was too dangerous to penetrate, how did it become safe enough for criminals to transport and surrender the corpse of a retired Major General?

How was the handover arranged?

Was there prior communication?

Was there a negotiated corridor?

Who received the body?

Was intelligence gathered?

Was any operational advantage extracted from the encounter?

And perhaps the most painful question:

Why is the widow still in captivity?

These are not accusations.

They are questions.

Questions made necessary by the contradictions before us.

Because sovereignty is not merely a constitutional doctrine.

It is not the coat of arms.

It is not the national anthem.

Sovereignty is demonstrated daily.

It is measured by who controls territory.

Who commands fear.

Who dictates outcomes.

Who compels obedience.

Who determines the rhythm of conflict.

And increasingly, Nigerians are being forced to ask:

Who controls the rhythm of this war?

Wars are not won merely by possessing superior weapons.

They are won when one side dictates the pace.

One side acts.

The other reacts.

One side chooses the battlefield.

The other responds.

One side determines who is taken, who is released and, heartbreakingly, who buries the dead.

Observe the pattern.

Bandits choose the targets.

They strike schools.

They ambush highways.

They invade farms.

They sack communities.

They determine ransom.

They decide who lives.

They decide who dies.

Sometimes, they decide when the dead are returned.

Government condemns.

Deploys troops.

Issues ultimatums.

Promises decisive action.

Then waits for the next tragedy.

At what point does operational caution become strategic paralysis?

This is not an easy question.

But it is one the nation can no longer avoid.

Because criminals learn.

They adapt.

They study the state.

If hostage-taking repeatedly shields them from overwhelming force, then hostages cease to be incidental casualties.

They become strategic assets.

The kidnappers understand this.

Do we?

A state that cannot strike because captives are present faces a terrible dilemma.

Strike and risk innocent lives.

Refrain and risk emboldening criminals.

There are no easy answers.

But there are dangerous consequences when restraint gradually becomes predictability.

Because predictability is exploitable.

And criminal organisations are nothing if not opportunistic.

This is why the return of the corpse carries such symbolism.

It is not merely a humanitarian gesture.

Nor is it merely a criminal calculation.

It is a message.

The message may not have been intended.

But symbols acquire meanings beyond intentions.

The state says:

We possess the monopoly of force.

The criminals appear to reply:

We determine the fate of your generals.

We decide when they die.

We decide when their bodies return home.

That symbolism is painful.

Not because governments never fail.

Every government fails.

Every military suffers setbacks.

Every intelligence agency miscalculates.

But because citizens must never lose faith that the state remains stronger than those who challenge it.

That faith is not sustained by press releases.

It is sustained by outcomes.

The danger Nigeria faces is not merely banditry.

It is not merely terrorism.

It is not merely kidnapping.

The greater danger is the gradual normalization of helplessness.

A condition where society adjusts to the abnormal.

Where massacres become statistics.

Where abductions become routine.

Where communities negotiate their own survival.

Where families crowdsource ransom.

Where ghost towns quietly emerge.

Where condolence messages become policy.

Where citizens begin to ask:

Who is really in charge?

This is a dangerous question.

Because states derive their legitimacy not only from constitutions and elections.

They derive it from the confidence citizens have in their ability to protect life and impose order.

That confidence is difficult to build.

And easy to lose.

The recent warning by former Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, that governors and ministers may themselves become targets of insecurity should deepen the conversation.

Yet one is compelled to ask:

Why should the possibility of elite victimhood suddenly become alarming?

Have farmers not died enough?

Have schoolchildren not been abducted enough?

Have traditional rulers not been murdered enough?

Have soldiers not been buried enough?

Have entire communities not been emptied enough?

For years, insecurity was treated as a distant affliction affecting anonymous people in remote places.

Today, the walls separating the vulnerable from the powerful appear increasingly fragile.

Perhaps Buratai's warning is not merely a warning.

Perhaps it is an admission.

An admission that insecurity is no longer a peripheral problem.

It is creeping towards the centre.

And when insecurity begins to threaten those who once supervised the security architecture, the country must ask itself:

What exactly has changed?

Has organized violence become more sophisticated?

Has intelligence become less effective?

Has the state become overly cautious?

Or has Nigeria gradually adjusted itself to a level of dysfunction that once would have been considered intolerable?

This is where the tragedy of the abducted retired Defence spokesman assumes a significance beyond personal grief.

He was not an ordinary citizen.

He was part of the system.

He understood the language of security.

He had worn the uniform.

He had spoken for the armed forces.

Yet the state could not save him.

And now, if reports are accurate, the men who took him have determined the terms of his final journey.

That symbolism is painful.

Because wars are not lost only on battlefields.

They are also lost psychologically.

They are lost when citizens begin to doubt.

When fear becomes routine.

When insecurity becomes background noise.

When governments become reactive.

When criminals seize the initiative.

Nigeria is at war.

Not a conventional war between nations.

But a war against criminal networks, terrorists, kidnappers and violent entrepreneurs who exploit ungoverned spaces and profit from fear.

Such wars cannot be fought with ultimatums alone.

They cannot be fought with condolences.

They cannot be fought with declarations of imminent victory repeated year after year.

They require intelligence superiority.

Operational creativity.

Relentless disruption of criminal networks.

Political courage.

Institutional accountability.

And above all, they require the state to reclaim the initiative.

Because wars are ultimately contests of will.

And until Nigeria determines where battles are fought, how criminals are pursued and under what conditions they surrender, the unsettling question will remain.

Who controls the rhythm of this war?

It is a question that should trouble the President.

It should trouble governors. It should trouble generals. It should trouble intelligence chiefs. It should trouble every citizen.

For nations survive terrible wars.

What they struggle to survive is the normalization of helplessness.

And until the state reclaims the initiative, others will continue to dictate the pace, the terms and the psychology of this conflict.

That would be a tragedy far greater than any single kidnapping.

Because it would mean that the battle is no longer only for territory.

It is for authority. It is for confidence.

It is for the soul of the Republic.

•Ogundipe, Public Affairs Analyst and former President of the Nigeria and African Union of Journalists, writes from Abuja.

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