Words matter. They do not merely describe reality; they organise it, discipline it, and, in the hands of power, attempt to dominate it. Every state understands this, even when it pretends otherwise. Governments fight not only wars of territory and force, but wars of meaning—battles over how events are named, framed, and remembered. In moments of crisis, especially insecurity, those who control the national narrative seek discursive sovereignty: the power to define what is happening, who is winning, who is losing, and when closure has been achieved. This is why official language in times of conflict is never neutral. It is strategic. Metaphors are deployed as weapons; declarations are issued as substitutes for outcomes; confidence is performed in advance of results. The objective is not merely to inform the public, but to stabilise perception—to create the impression of control even where control is fragile. In such contexts, words become political capital. They are invested, circulated, defended, and sometimes, disastrously, overdrawn.
Nigeria’s security crisis has become a textbook case of this battle for narrative dominance. From “peace dialogue” to “kinetic and non-kinetic approaches,” from “repentant bandits” to “technical defeat,” and most recently, to the chillingly theatrical phrase “dead men walking,” the state has repeatedly reached for language as a way of mastering fear, outrage, and public doubt. But language, unlike force, has memory. When it fails to align with lived reality, it returns not as reassurance, but as indictment. It is against this backdrop that the resurfacing of terrorism kingpin Bello Turji must be read—not merely as a security failure, but as a discursive collapse.
In December 2024, the Nigerian military, speaking through the Director of Defence Media Operations, Major-General Edward Buba, declared that Turji and other notorious bandit leaders were already living on borrowed time. “Bello Turji is merely a dead man walking,” Buba told the nation, insisting that it would be “insulting to join issues and words with a terrorist.” He assured Nigerians that “a similar fate awaits others, including Bello Turji,” adding that over 1,000 terrorist leaders and commanders had been eliminated within the year.
It was a powerful rhetorical moment. The metaphor was deliberate, vivid, and final. It sought to close the story even before its ending had been delivered. In narrative terms, the state was claiming victory in advance—asserting not just military superiority, but linguistic finality. The war, at least in words, was over. Today, December 2025, one long year after, that metaphor lies in ruins. Turji is not dead. He is not silent. He is not erased from the public sphere. Instead, he has re-entered it—confident enough to issue denials, confirm meetings with a former governor, accuse political actors of manipulation, recount airstrikes, and situate himself as a knowing participant in Nigeria’s contested security history. The “dead man” is walking, talking, and reshaping the narrative terrain the state claimed to control.
When a man accused of mass killings, village burnings, abductions, and terror campaigns resurfaces not in chains but in a viral video—issuing rebuttals, naming senior public officials, and cautioning politicians against using his name for propaganda—the Nigerian state has already lost something more valuable than territory. It has lost narrative authority. This is where the controversy surrounding Turji’s alleged dealings with former Zamfara State governor, Bello Matawalle, acquires significance far beyond personal reputation or partisan rivalry. The accusations by Musa Kamarawa, the counter-accusations by Matawalle’s camp, and Turji’s own carefully calibrated response are not isolated scandals. They are fragments of a larger struggle over meaning, legitimacy, and authority in a state where violence has become both a material and symbolic currency. The Turji–Matawalle accusations and counter-accusations matter not because of their salacious details—cows for Sallah, Hilux vehicles, houses, livestock feed—but because they reveal how deeply Nigeria’s insecurity has been politicised and normalised.
Musa Kamarawa’s allegations, whether ultimately proven or discredited in court, sketch a disturbing portrait of governance under siege: a state so desperate for calm that it allegedly contracts terror leaders for ceremonial logistics, supplies them with material incentives, and integrates criminal intermediaries into government as aides “in search of peace.” Matawalle’s camp, for its part, insists that Kamarawa was a gun runner, later prosecuted and jailed, and now weaponised by political rivals. Bello Turji denies collecting money but confirms meetings; he disowns loyalty to Matawalle but narrates shared history. The result is a fog of competing narratives in which no party emerges untainted, and the public interest is the primary casualty. What is beyond dispute, however, is this: the Nigerian state has repeatedly engaged violent non-state actors not from a position of authority, but from one of weakness. Once that line is crossed, bandits cease to be mere criminals. They become stakeholders. Negotiators. Political variables. That is how banditry mutates into political banditry.
There is a reason states must be careful with metaphors. Calling a terror leader a “dead man walking” is not merely descriptive; it is performative. It signals inevitability. It reassures citizens. It projects strength. But when that metaphor collapses under the weight of reality, it rebounds with force. General Buba’s words were not whispered in confidence; they were broadcast nationally. Nigerians were told that it would be “insulting” to even engage Turji rhetorically. Yet here we are, engaging not only with his words but with his videos, his denials, his grievances, his political positioning. The damage is not limited to credibility. It affects morale, trust, and the social contract. Citizens in terrorised communities do not measure security success by press briefings; they measure it by whether they can farm, travel, sleep, and bury their dead without fear. For them, the gap between military declarations and lived reality is not academic—it is existential. When insecurity becomes politicised, truth becomes secondary to advantage. Accountability dissolves. And the bandits—the supposed enemies of the state—become inadvertent beneficiaries of elite fragmentation.
If the Turji–Matawalle saga teaches us anything, it is that words are not merely vessels for reporting; they are instruments of authority, promises, and sometimes deception. The military’s declaration of Turji as a “dead man walking” was more than metaphor—it was a public performance of control, a claim to narrative sovereignty meant to reassure citizens and assert the state’s dominance over chaos. Yet, when reality refused to align with that language, the failure was not only operational but discursive. Words had been overdrawn; confidence unbacked by action returned as a measure of public cynicism.
Language shapes perception, and perception shapes politics. When politicians and security agencies invest in narratives they cannot substantiate, they create spaces in which criminal actors can speak back, rewrite the story, and challenge authority. Turji’s very ability to re-enter the public sphere, to contextualise and contest allegations, is a testament to the limits of declarative rhetoric in the absence of tangible results. In effect, the “dead man walking” walks not only because enforcement failed, but because the words that should have carried authority were emptied of consequence. For Nigeria, the lesson is stark: control of words must be matched by control of action. To declare victories prematurely, to dress expediency in rhetoric, or to weaponise narrative for political gain is to risk losing both credibility and sovereignty. Words can inspire, pacify, and unify—but when they fail the test of reality, they become mirrors of state fragility, amplifying the very crises they were meant to contain.
Ultimately, the continued existence of Turji and the ongoing insecurity across northern Nigeria are reminders that the battle of words is inseparable from the battle for security. Citizens measure safety not by press releases but by lived experience. If the state wishes to reclaim authority—both narrative and territorial—it must ensure that its words, like its actions, carry weight. Until then, Nigeria will remain a country where “dead men walking” continue to walk freely, and where the nation’s most potent instruments of power—the words it chooses to speak—risk becoming instruments of its undoing.
Nigeria’s security crisis cannot be resolved by metaphors, whether conciliatory or bellicose. Peace dialogues without enforcement breed contempt. Military bravado without decisive outcomes breeds cynicism. What is required is a coherent doctrine anchored in accountability, intelligence-driven operations, institutional reform, and a clear moral line: the state does not reward terror, negotiate from fear, or outsource authority to criminals. Dialogue, where unavoidable, must be transparent, conditional, and subordinate to the rule of law. Military operations must be sustained, verifiable, and insulated from political interference. And political actors must understand that short-term calm purchased through compromise with violence exacts a long-term price the nation can no longer afford.
A “dead man walking,” who walks freely, is more than an operational failure. He is a mirror held up to the Nigerian state—reflecting its hesitations, contradictions, and unresolved choices. Until Nigeria confronts these truths honestly, the forests will continue to speak louder than the podiums, and the dead metaphors of press briefings will continue to be outlived by very real men with guns. And that, perhaps, is the most unsettling implication of all.
.Agbedo, a professor of Linguistics, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Fellow of Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, is a public affairs analyst.
