by Mohammed Bello Doka
22 May, 2026.
In early 2026, a coordinated attack on the village of Woro in Kwara State resulted in the deaths of at least 162 civilians. According to the African Union Commission, the attack constituted a grave violation of human rights and an unacceptable assault on peace and security. Just weeks earlier, on February 3, 2026, the same massacre claimed at least 162 lives in the country’s Center-West region. These events reveal a nation grappling with hybrid violence, combining terrorism, mass banditry, and the impotence of law enforcement. For three years, the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has pursued the most aggressive economic recalibration in a generation, producing measurable gains in GDP growth, foreign reserves, and investor confidence. But that fragile revival now stands on the edge of a precipice. The country’s spreading insecurity is not merely a humanitarian catastrophe; it is an economic phenomenon that could derail the entire reform agenda. And because President Tinubu has failed to secure the nation, he has forfeited any moral or practical claim to a second term in 2027.
The sheer scale of violence is difficult to overstate. According to figures released by Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, more people were killed by bandits or insurgents in the first half of 2025 alone than in all of 2024, with at least 2,266 people killed in the first six months compared to 2,194 for the full year of 2024. Tony Ojukwu, Executive Secretary of the commission, called for urgent and decisive action. These were not mere figures on a report, Ojukwu said. They were fathers, mothers, children, and breadwinners; families torn apart, livelihoods destroyed, and futures extinguished in moments of senseless brutality. An Amnesty International report published in May 2025 found that no fewer than 10,217 people had been killed in the two years since the Tinubu administration took office, with over 6,896 killed in Benue State alone and at least 2,630 killed in Plateau State. The report also noted that about 638 villages had been sacked by bandits in Zamfara State. By any standard, these are grim figures for a nation that is not at war. Under Tinubu’s watch, the body count has risen, not fallen. It must be noted, however, that the Nigerian government has disputed these figures as unverified, with the Niger Delta Youth Congress describing the report as filled with unverified data, outrageous exaggerations, and politically motivated narratives.
The Nigerian military, already stretched thin, is fighting a multi-front war. In the northeast, Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province continue to wreak havoc, with the conflict causing over 40,000 deaths and displacing approximately two million people, according to the United Nations. ACLED recorded over 300 clashes involving the two groups in the Lake Chad region in the first quarter of 2026 alone, a 30 per cent increase over the last quarter of 2025, with a notable rise on both the Cameroon and Nigeria sides of the border. In early 2026, the groups escalated further, launching daily attacks on civilians and security forces particularly in their strongholds of Yobe and Borno states. In March 2026 alone, terrorists simultaneously attacked four military bases in Borno and Yobe states, killing the Commanding Officer of 222 Battalion in Konduga and a Lieutenant Colonel in Kukawa. Tinubu’s promise to crush insurgency has produced no tangible reduction in terrorist capability.
In the northwest and north-central zones, banditry has evolved into a highly organized criminal economy driven by mass abductions, village raids, and ransom negotiations. An estimated 638 villages have been sacked in Zamfara State alone. Kidnapping has become an industrial practice. The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education reported that since January 2026 alone, more than 1,000 Nigerians have been abducted across the country. CHRICED Executive Director Comrade Ibrahim Zikirullahi warned that the country is drifting into a deeper crisis, adding, This is not just a statistic, it is a reflection of a nation under severe strain. Tinubu’s security strategy, which relies heavily on increased military spending and foreign collaboration, has done nothing to stem the tide of abductions.
In the southeast, separatist violence perpetuated by the Indigenous People of Biafra and its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network, has intensified. In April 2026, joint troops launched precision strikes on IPOB and ESN strongholds in Enugu State, forcing a chaotic retreat and recovering improvised explosive devices. The military’s campaign under Operation Eastern Sanity, which has cost the lives of senior officers, has brought the conflict to a boil without resolving the underlying grievances that fuel the insurgency. Tinubu’s approach has been reactive, not strategic, leaving the southeast in a permanent state of low-intensity warfare.
The North Central region presents yet another deadly front: farmer-herder clashes. In Benue State, coordinated attacks in June 2025 reportedly killed about 200 people in Guma Local Government Area alone. Since 2021, at least 930 people have died in farmer-herder violence in the state, while more than half a million residents have been displaced, according to conflict tracking data cited in a Nextier report. Plateau State has witnessed similar cycles of reprisal. In April 2025, gunmen killed at least 52 people in communities within the Mwaghavul Chiefdom, with more than 1,100 deaths recorded in the state since 2021. This is not a clash, a survivor told the BBC. It’s nothing but a pure genocide. They want to wipe us off and then grab the land. The conflict’s drivers—land disputes, climate pressures, the criminalization of rural violence, and governance failures—are deeply structural, and the violence has become self-sustaining, financed by kidnapping, cattle rustling, and illicit mining. Tinubu has offered no comprehensive policy to address these root causes.
The economic consequences of this sprawling violence are direct and devastating. Crude oil production, the lifeblood of the Nigerian economy, continues to bleed. According to data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, between 2002 and 2025, about 353 million barrels of crude oil were stolen from Nigeria’s Niger Delta. At an average price of $73 per barrel, the stolen crude would amount to approximately $25.7 billion in losses. The commission has reported that daily crude oil losses from theft and sabotage dropped to 9,600 barrels per day in July 2025, the lowest figure since 2009. However, this remains a significant drain on national revenue. Despite pipeline surveillance contracts, illegal refining and bunkering remain widespread, and senior Nigerian officials have warned that international syndicates are driving the trade, exploiting security gaps across the country. Short-term military deployments and surveillance contracts have proved insufficient to sustain higher production, and the 2025 federal budget, which assumed daily production of 2.06 million barrels, has been consistently missed, with actual output often falling far below that target. Tinubu inherited a bleeding oil sector and has failed to stanch the wound.
Agriculture, which employs a substantial portion of Nigeria’s workforce, has also been devastated. Farmers in Benue, Plateau, Taraba, and Zamfara states have been forced to abandon their fields. In Benue, killer herdsmen are reportedly depriving farmers of access to their farmlands, preventing them from harvesting their crops. The destruction of farms and properties worth billions of naira has pushed millions further into poverty and deepened the country’s food insecurity crisis, which already saw food inflation topping 40 per cent at its peak. Under Tinubu, Nigeria has become a nation where farmers cannot farm and where the government cannot protect the very land that feeds its people.
The cumulative effect on Nigeria’s Global Peace Index performance is sobering. According to CountryEconomy.com data, Nigeria’s GPI score slipped from 2.840 in 2021 to 2.907 in 2024, ranking 147th globally. In 2025, Nigeria was again classified among Africa’s least peaceful nations, ranking around 148th globally, and trailing behind regional peers like Mauritius, Botswana, and Namibia. Dr. Alfred Meruwanne, a security analyst based in Abuja, warned: Every small gain in the peace index translates to reduced business risks and increased investor confidence. The problem is that insecurity has become deeply entrenched, and unless the government adopts a multi‑dimensional approach, the peace dividends that investors seek will remain elusive.
The private sector is already buckling under the weight of the crisis. We spend close to 20 per cent of our annual budget on security alone, said Danladi Muhammed, a logistics company owner in Lagos. These are funds that should be invested in expanding operations or hiring more staff, but instead they go into protecting our goods and personnel. Foreign investors share the same concerns. Anita Thompson, an investment consultant based in Lagos, observed: Nigeria has huge potential in manufacturing and services, but peace is the foundation for long-term investment. International clients frequently ask about security before they ask about profit margins, which tells you how much of a risk factor insecurity has become. Tinubu’s economic reforms have attracted portfolio flows, but without security, real investment in productive capacity will not follow.
The Nigerian government has not been passive. The security budget has consumed the largest share of national expenditure in successive years, rising from N2.41 trillion in 2022 to N6.57 trillion in 2025. President Tinubu declared a state of emergency on security, and Nigeria has deepened cooperation with the United States, which deployed about 200 troops to train and assist the Nigerian military and launched missile strikes against Islamist hideouts in the northwest. Yet the results, measured in civilian lives lost and economic output foregone, remain inadequate. The government’s own Finance Minister, Wale Edun, has conceded that security and economic stability are inseparable; every effort to safeguard Nigerians is, by definition, pro-growth and pro-investment. But the gap between this declaration and the lived reality of millions of Nigerians is as wide as ever. Tinubu has spent more, promised more, and delivered less.
The question that must be asked as Nigeria approaches 2027 is not whether Tinubu has tried, but whether he has succeeded. By every available metric, he has not. The number of Nigerians killed under his watch exceeds 10,000 according to some reports. Over 1,000 citizens have been abducted in the first months of 2026 alone. Oil theft, though reduced to its lowest level in 16 years, remains a persistent drain on revenue. Farmers remain displaced, and the north-central region has become a killing field. The economic revival that his supporters tout cannot be sustained when the security foundations are this brittle. No amount of foreign reserve accumulation or naira appreciation can compensate for a state that cannot protect its own people.
Development Economist Dr. Paul Alaje captured the predicament with precision: The government can push reforms in revenue collection, foreign exchange, and infrastructure, but if insecurity persists, the benefits will not be fully realised. Investors need predictability, and instability erodes that confidence. Nigeria’s $1 trillion economic ambition demands a level of peace and security that remains tragically out of reach. For as long as bandits can sack villages with impunity, insurgents can overrun military bases, and kidnappers can snatch over a thousand citizens in a matter of months, the economic revival will remain a promise deferred.
A second term for Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be an endorsement of failure. Three years have been sufficient to demonstrate that his security strategy—more spending, more foreign troops, more emergency declarations—does not work. The nation is under siege, and the man at the helm has proven incapable of lifting that siege. Nigeria needs a leader who can secure its territory, protect its farmers, restore its oil production, and give its citizens the peace they deserve. Tinubu is not that leader. The 2027 election must be a referendum on security, and on that score, the incumbent has already failed.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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