By Law & Society Magazine Investigations
Nigeria is hardly the first country to confront the painful choice between ending a war and delivering justice.
From Latin America to Africa and Europe, governments have wrestled with the same dilemma. Some chose dialogue. Others chose military victory. A few attempted to combine both. What distinguishes successful peace processes, however, is that very few simply welcomed violent actors back into society without demanding accountability.
The lesson emerging from decades of conflict resolution is remarkably consistent. Sustainable peace is rarely achieved by asking victims alone to forgive. It is built on a delicate balance between reconciliation and justice.
Nigeria’s experience appears to have tilted heavily towards reconciliation while leaving justice struggling to catch up.
Colombia: Peace Came With Accountability
Perhaps no modern example illustrates this balance better than Colombia.
For more than half a century, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) waged one of the world’s longest insurgencies. More than 220,000 people died, millions were displaced and entire communities disappeared under the weight of kidnappings, bombings and massacres.
By 2016, the Colombian government concluded that outright military victory was unlikely and entered negotiations with the rebels.
The resulting peace agreement attracted criticism from both supporters and opponents, but it rested on one principle that Nigeria’s own reintegration efforts have often lacked. Accountability.
Read Also: When Terror Pays (PART III A): When peace comes without justice
Instead of blanket amnesty, Colombia established the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a transitional justice court empowered to investigate atrocities committed by both rebels and state actors. Former commanders who admitted responsibility and told the truth could receive reduced sentences involving restrictions on liberty rather than conventional imprisonment. Those who lied or refused to cooperate remained liable to full criminal prosecution.
Victims occupied the centre of the process.
Thousands participated in hearings, submitted evidence and demanded explanations from those responsible for atrocities. The message was clear. Peace required compromise. Justice remained non-negotiable.
Sierra Leone: Amnesty Was Not Enough
West Africa offers another important lesson.
Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war ended in 2002 after years of atrocities that included amputations, mass killings and the widespread recruitment of child soldiers. The peace agreement initially contained broad amnesty provisions intended to encourage combatants to disarm. International pressure quickly exposed the limitations of that approach.
The United Nations refused to recognise amnesty for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. Instead, the Special Court for Sierra Leone was established to prosecute those who bore the greatest responsibility for the conflict.
Alongside criminal prosecutions, the country created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document abuses, hear victims’ testimonies and recommend institutional reforms. The combination acknowledged a difficult reality. Peace may require negotiation. Justice still requires consequences.
Northern Ireland: Politics Before Reintegration
The Good Friday Agreement remains one of history’s most studied peace accords.
After decades of sectarian violence known as “The Troubles,” Britain, Ireland and Northern Irish political leaders negotiated an agreement that fundamentally transformed the region. Prisoners linked to paramilitary organisations were released under carefully defined legal conditions. Weapons were decommissioned through internationally supervised processes. Political reforms accompanied security reforms.
Most importantly, the agreement emerged after years of structured negotiations involving governments, political parties, community organisations and international mediators. It was not simply an executive decision to forgive violence. It was a comprehensive constitutional settlement.
Even today, Northern Ireland continues to debate unresolved questions of accountability for past crimes. The peace process did not eliminate demands for justice. It merely created institutions capable of managing those demands.
Rwanda: Justice Before Reconciliation
Few societies have experienced violence on the scale witnessed in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.
Nearly one million people were killed within approximately one hundred days. The country’s response combined international prosecutions through the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with community-based Gacaca courts designed to process the enormous number of genocide cases. Confession could reduce punishment. Denial often attracted harsher penalties. The underlying philosophy remained consistent.
Reconciliation required acknowledgement. Forgiveness required truth. Victims were not expected simply to move on. The country insisted upon confronting the past before attempting to build the future.
What Nigeria Still Lacks
Nigeria has experimented with dialogue, rehabilitation and military operations.
What it has never fully developed is a nationally accepted transitional justice framework. There is no comprehensive truth commission examining the atrocities committed by bandits and insurgents. No special tribunal exists to distinguish those who planned massacres from those coerced into joining criminal groups.
Victims seldom appear at the centre of reintegration debates. Instead, public discussion often revolves around persuading perpetrators to surrender. The imbalance has become increasingly visible. Communities emptied by violence remain displaced years after attacks. Children kidnapped from schools continue to haunt national memory. Farmers pay protection levies simply to cultivate their own land.
Yet discussions about reintegration frequently focus on what former fighters need to restart their lives. The victims ask a haunting question. Who is helping us restart ours?
The Missing Voice
One of the most striking features of Nigeria’s security conversation is who is often absent. The victims. The widow whose husband never returned from his farm. The parents who sold everything they owned to raise ransom money. The child who watched armed men burn down a school. The farmer who now cultivates land under the constant fear of another attack. The families still living inside overcrowded displacement camps.
Their stories rarely dominate policy discussions. Instead, national attention frequently shifts towards convincing armed groups to embrace peace. That imbalance matters because successful transitional justice depends as much on restoring victims’ dignity as persuading perpetrators to abandon violence.
International experience repeatedly demonstrates that reconciliation imposed without justice rarely heals communities. It merely postpones unresolved grievances.
Governance Matters Too
Civil society organisations have consistently argued that security cannot be separated from governance.
The Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, has repeatedly maintained that insecurity thrives where institutions are weak, corruption undermines public confidence and accountability remains selective.
His broader argument is that military responses alone cannot resolve conflicts rooted in poverty, exclusion, governance failures and institutional collapse. Many security scholars agree. Banditry today is no longer driven solely by ideology.
In many parts of northwestern Nigeria it has evolved into an organised criminal economy involving ransom payments, illegal taxation, cattle rustling, arms trafficking and control over rural territories. Breaking that economy requires more than dialogue. It demands stronger institutions capable of enforcing law consistently while rebuilding public trust.
Without accountability, negotiations risk becoming temporary pauses rather than permanent solutions.
Justice Is Also Deterrence
Supporters of reintegration often argue that offering former fighters another chance encourages defections and ultimately saves lives. There is merit in that argument. History shows that many conflicts have ended because combatants were offered incentives to surrender.
The challenge lies in ensuring that incentives do not become rewards for criminality. Criminal law serves not only to punish. It also deters.
If communities begin to believe that those responsible for mass kidnappings, village massacres and large-scale extortion may eventually negotiate favourable outcomes without meaningful accountability, confidence in justice inevitably weakens.
The consequences extend beyond security. Public faith in government begins to erode. Victims lose confidence in institutions. Communities increasingly resort to self-help and vigilante responses. The rule of law suffers.
The Question Nigeria Must Answer
Nigeria stands at another crossroads. Military operations continue. Bandits remain active across several states. Kidnapping has evolved into a multibillion-naira criminal enterprise. Entire communities continue to pay illegal taxes simply to survive.
Government must decide whether future reintegration efforts will remain largely administrative exercises or evolve into transparent legal processes grounded in justice, accountability and victims’ rights.
International experience offers an unmistakable lesson. Negotiation can stop wars. It cannot erase crimes. Peace agreements may silence guns. Only justice can restore confidence that the law protects everyone equally. That is the real challenge confronting Nigeria today. Not whether dialogue should occur. But whether peace purchased at the expense of accountability can ever produce lasting security.
For every former fighter welcomed back into society, there is a mother still searching for her abducted child. For every rehabilitation programme announced, there is a village waiting to be rebuilt. For every negotiation conducted behind closed doors, there are victims who have never been invited into the conversation. Until those voices are heard, Nigeria’s search for peace may remain incomplete.
And until justice occupies the same table as reconciliation, the country risks teaching a lesson no democracy can afford: that terror is eventually negotiated, while suffering is simply endured.
End of Phase III
To be continued.
