Much of the conversations regarding the sad and unwarranted attack on the men of the Nigerian Army in Okuama community of Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State have bordered around reprisal. Everyone seems concerned that the dead soldiers’ colleagues will go on a rampage. Several media reports that members of the Okuama community have reportedly gone into hiding, either fleeing into the bush or seeking refuge from neighbouring communities. Some reports keep recirculating one single photo that purportedly shows Okuama being razed by wrathful soldiers. The preoccupation with retaliation is understandable, given Nigeria’s history.

We all remember a similar incident in Odi community in Bayelsa State, in the same restive Niger Delta region, where a gang killed soldiers (and police officers) over issues of oil resources within their environment, the devastation it has caused, and the general degradation of their relationship with the Nigerian state. Nobody can forget the military response to that incident. From sexual assault to mass murder, Nigerian troops dealt with Odi. Two years after that incident, the military also invaded Zaki-Biam communities in Benue State after some members of their community abducted and murdered 19 soldiers. Several reports estimated that no less than 100 people were killed to avenge the death of their officers. Another unforgettable incident involving the Nigerian troops is the 2015 massacre of the Shiites. While not exactly a reprisal, the Shiites had reportedly stood in the path of the motorcade of then Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai. At least 350 of them—going by official figures—were killed for it.

I am bringing up these sundry histories not to relativise what happened to the soldiers in Okuama but to point out how the brutality of the Nigerian troops has overshadowed the humanity of their fallen soldiers. We have focused so much on what the troops will do to get even and redacted the supreme sacrifice of these soldiers’ lives in the process. The people who died are humans too and they left loved ones behind. Elsewhere, the focus would have been on the lives they led, not on the ferocity of their unforgiving peers. Their humanity must not be lost in our sight even as we get jittery about possible retaliatory attacks.

What is also being obscured in the discussions around the recent attack is that the Okuama killing is one of the many that have consumed Nigerian soldiers since the country started warring with—and within—itself. There are many—and God knows, too many! —reports of Nigerian officers getting killed within the warfront called Nigeria every time. Those casualty rates might not be worse if they fight an enemy nation outside the country’s borders. The frequency with which these Nigerian soldiers get ambushed calls into question everything from the larger structural problems of Nigeria’s insecurity to the training and intelligence reports these soldiers received, down to the character of the people within communities where these attacks are perpetuated.

For instance, at least 50 Nigerian soldiers were reported killed in an ambush in Gorgi, Yobe State, in March 2020. Before then, in 2018, there was another one in Zari village in Borno that claimed the lives of 48 soldiers. Also, 34 soldiers (and eight policemen) were also reported killed in June 2022 after being ambushed by gunmen who had attacked a mine in the Shiroro area of Niger State. The soldiers had been deployed to search for mine workers—including four Chinese—who had been reported kidnapped. Like the Okuama case, the soldiers were also responding to a distress call when they were surrounded and brutally murdered. One year later, in the same Shiroro area, another 36 soldiers were reported killed in twin attacks. Just last August, another 36 were killed in Chukuba, Niger State.

Look, I could go on and on cataloguing the series of ambushes Nigerian troops have faced in the course of their duty to the nation, but it is starting to get too morbid. Please also note that I have deliberately excluded the many occasions where soldiers got killed as a result of direct attacks by bandits and terrorists. The ones I listed here are those reported as an “ambush,” and they mimic the Okuama killings (that is, troops attacked and killed while responding to distress calls or on a supposed peacekeeping mission).

There are some vital factors to note about the frequency of the ambushes. One is that the fear of reprisal has not stopped the attacks on Nigerian troops. Whoever was behind the Okuama killings knew very well what the military could do to them or their communities in return, but even that was no deterrence. They still went ahead and killed those poor officers gruesomely. That suggests that, in reality, the reputation of the military as ruthless when provoked does not have the force people tend to associate with it when the thought of reprisal looms in their imagination.

That was why it was in poor form for the president, Bola Tinubu, to give the military “full authority” (whatever that was supposed to mean in practice) to bring those behind the killings to justice. As a supposedly democratic president, he should know better than put the “full authority” to ensure justice in the hands of the military when he knows there is still something in Nigeria called “the police” and “the courts.” The military was not set up to do justice; why apportion the responsibility to them? Given their history of retaliation against offending communities, why send them to go do “full justice”? He might as well just sign an execution order against the poor people of Okuama!

Our focus on Okuama and its aftermath should also not occlude the circumstances that led to the death of the poor soldiers. Several of the conflicting accounts explaining why the soldiers went to Okuama seemed like people trying too hard to alleviate the moral impact of the murder. Nothing justifies murder, simple. That said, the government owes us some clarity on what happened in Okuama. How did the soldiers die? What weapons or training did their assailants have that they could overpower so many trained officers? What pre-existing relationship did they have with their killers that precipitated the attacks on the soldiers?

In a press release by lawmaker Rt. Hon. Francis Waive representing Ughelli North, Ughelli South, and Udu Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, he noted the population of Okuama as “only a few hundred inhabitants” and wondered how a few people would inflict such damage. Like him, I am also curious to understand how the attack happened—the people involved, whether they had external help, and how they even mustered the confidence to stand up to armed soldiers. How did it happen that soldiers on a supposed peacekeeping mission ended up dead? There are many missing details that the military and the people of Okuama owe us, and the focus on reprisal is not helping the story to get clearer.