Nigeria, Sept. 21 -- Nigeria's Minister of Defence, Christopher Musa's recent claim that terrorists have been defeated sounds like a fairy tale. If that had been the case, President Bola Tinubu would not have been holding periodic meetings with service chiefs, given the embarrassing security breaches that keep unfolding, one after the other. Therefore, this official sense of triumphalism is premature and derisory.

Paradoxically, as the minister was making this offensive assertion, mass abductions occurred during the attack on mosques and villages in Borgu, Niger State, which is notorious for harbouring terrorist cells. About 500 people were kidnapped on 21 August, forcing the president to order the military and other security personnel t...