By Sa’adiyyah Adebisi Hassan
The United States recently struck ISIS targets in Nigeria – not civilians, not villages, not mosques, but ISIS. Right on cue, a familiar group of moral contortionists, terrorism relativists, and permanent negotiators erupted in outrage, not against the terrorists, but against those who hit them. At the center of this reaction is Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, once again positioning himself not as a neutral cleric or mediator, but as the most consistent public defender of armed criminal groups operating within Nigeria.
This pattern is no longer strange, it is predictable. Whenever terrorists are named, classified, confronted, or hit, there is immediate protest, moralising, and appeals to sovereignty. Yet when villages are wiped out, farmers slaughtered, children kidnapped, women raped, and communities displaced, there is always an explanation, a lecture, or a deflection – but never urgency, never rage, never finality.
Gumi’s insistence that terrorism should only be fought by “clean, holy hands,” excluding the United States because of its global military record, collapses under even basic scrutiny. If clean hands were truly the requirement, then no African army qualifies, no Arab state qualifies, no Asian power qualifies, no European country qualifies, and no empire in history qualifies. By that logic, terrorism should never be fought at all. This is not moral philosophy, it is strategic paralysis disguised as piety.
The most perverse irony is that the same people who demand court declarations before action, insist dialogue must always come first, argue that military force never works, and warn that foreign help undermines sovereignty, have never produced an alternative that actually works. Nigeria tried amnesty, dialogue, ceasefires, payments, the release of arrested fighters, and reintegration without justice. The result was not peace but bigger gangs, better weapons, greater confidence, and more deaths.
No serious country thinks this way. When ISIS attacked France, there was no call for dialogue. Egypt did not seek mediation. Turkey did not complain about sovereignty. Iraq did not worry about symbolism. Israel did not convene clerics. Pakistan did not wait endlessly for courts. They acted decisively, because states exist to protect citizens, not to protect narratives.
The claim that striking ISIS amounts to a “neo-Crusade against Islam” is not only reckless, it is intellectually dishonest. ISIS kills more Muslims than Christians, declares Muslims apostates, burns mosques, enslaves Muslim women, and attacks Muslim communities. If bombing ISIS is anti-Islam, then every Muslim country that has fought ISIS – including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq – must also be anti-Islam. That argument insults Muslim intelligence worldwide.
The real fear behind this outrage is not concern for civilians or sovereignty, it is the loss of relevance. Once terrorists are clearly labelled, internationally targeted, militarily pressured, and financially isolated, middlemen lose access, negotiators lose influence, apologists lose their platform, and ideological cover collapses.
The sovereignty argument itself is selectively deployed. Nigeria accepts foreign loans, IMF conditions, Chinese infrastructure, foreign intelligence, foreign arms, and foreign training without protest. But suddenly, when terrorists are hit, sovereignty becomes sacred? That is not patriotism, it is selective outrage.
If ISIS were fake, if terrorism were manufactured, if the threat exaggerated, then serious questions remain unanswered: why are these groups armed, who trains them, who funds them, why do they control territory, and why do they issue threats? There are no answers only sermons.
Serious people understand that terrorism is not defeated by sympathy, semantics, sociology alone, endless dialogue, or clerical cover. It is defeated by clear naming, relentless pressure, intelligence sharing, financial strangulation, and force when necessary. That is not cruelty, it is state responsibility.
Yet every time terrorists are confronted, the same voices rush to shield them with language, procedure, and theology. Nigeria must therefore ask itself a hard but necessary question: why is it always easier to condemn those who fight terrorists than those who commit terror?
Until that question is answered honestly, the problem will persist. And history will not be kind to those who mistook apologetics for wisdom.
