Nigeria has seen many armed struggles, but not all of them followed the same path, and strategy.
When militants in the Niger Delta took up arms against the Nigerian state, their anger was aimed at the government and the oil system they believed had robbed their region for decades. Their targets were pipelines, oil facilities, and state interests. They did not kidnap schoolgirls. They did not storm markets or places of worship. They did not terrorize civilians to make a point. Their struggle was direct, open, and clearly defined, whether one agrees with it or not.
What plays out in the North today is an entirely different ball game, a story that is of course driven by politically motivated individuals and interest groups, but enormous effort has been deliberately enacted to make it look entirely religious.
Armed groups operating in northern Nigeria deliberately hide under the banner of religion. Their methods are loud and cruel, designed to stir fear and deepen hatred. Schools are attacked. Villages are wiped out. Churches and mosques are not spared. Innocent people, women, children, farmers, and traders carry the weight of the violence. Yet the public narrative is often quick to frame these crimes as “Muslim attacks on Christians,” even though countless Muslim communities have also been slaughtered, displaced, and traumatized by the same groups.
And this framing does more harm than good to all Nigerians living in Nigeria. It pushes the lie that Islam itself is at war with Nigeria, when the truth is that majority of the Muslims in the country live peacefully and are just as much victims of these terror groups as anyone else. The branding is not accidental. It fits a narrative that sells fear, fuels division, and turns a national security crisis into a religious blame game.
Then the script changes when violence shifts to the East.
When attacks linked to IPOB or ESN occur, in which most of these cases are Christian victims who are the majority in these regions, the language suddenly becomes cautious and vague. The 2022 brutal killing of a pregnant HARIRA JIBRIL, and her four young daughters in Anambra State, Nigeria, still remains fresh in my memory. The perpetrators are described as “unknown gunmen.” Their ideology is blurred. Their identity is softened. Their religion is never mentioned. Even when civilians are killed, communities shut down, and daily life becomes impossible, the violence is treated as an abstract security problem, not terrorism.
This selective naming raises serious questions.
Why is violence in one region quickly tied to religion, while violence in another is stripped of all labels? Why are some victims loudly identified by faith, while others are reduced to numbers? Why are some armed groups exposed in full daylight, while others are hidden behind careful wordings?
Terror is terror. Killing innocent people is cowardice, no matter the cause, the region, or the excuse used. No religion teaches the slaughter of the innocent. No political grievance justifies turning civilians into targets. And no part of Nigeria should be granted moral cover through selective storytelling.
The danger of these double standards is not just in the lies they spread, but in the divisions they deepen. They turn neighbours against each other. They poison trust. They distract us from the real enemies, the criminals and violence that thrives on chaos and how it weakens accountability.
Nigeria cannot defeat insecurity if it keeps choosing comfort over truth. We cannot heal as a nation while applying different names to the same crime. If we are serious about justice, peace, and unity, then every act of terror must be called exactly what it is regardless of who commits it or where it happens. And those politicians and clerics desperately trying to paint it with a religious brush should be called out!
Only then can the country begin to move forward.
This is an honest look at terrorism in Nigeria and the double standards in media, religion, and regional narratives shaping public perception.
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