By Gidado Siddiki
In recent weeks, I have read with deep concern a growing narrative in some sections of the media and among political actors trying to heap the entire blame for the lingering insecurity in Nigeria’s North West on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
As a Fulani leader and farmer from the North, with extensive ties across the North West, I’m duty-bound to tell the truth and correct this dangerous falsehood. It is politically convenient but factually wrong to blame President Tinubu for a crisis with deep local roots, historical depth, and constitutional responsibilities that lie far beyond Aso Rock.
Lest we forget, Nigeria is a federation. The 1999 Constitution as amended clearly defines the roles of leaders. Section 176 and the principle of federalism make a governor the chief executive and chief security officer of his state.
This is not a title for decoration. It is a constitutional responsibility with powers and resources. Every governor in the North West chairs the State Security Council. Every governor receives detailed daily intelligence briefing from the state command of the Department of State Services (DSS). Every governor has commissioner of police, army brigade commander, commandant of civil defence, comptroller of immigration, and heads of other security agencies sitting in his office for weekly security meetings.
Most importantly, every governor receives a monthly security vote running into hundreds of millions, and billions of naira in some North West state. Unaudited, this money is meant to be discreetly used to secure the state – to fund informants, support local security groups, buy and maintain patrol vehicles, support victims of insecurity, and gather intelligence.
President Tinubu, on the other hand, sits in Abuja. He is managing the security of 36 states and the FCT. He is fighting Boko Haram in the North East, IPOB/ESN in the South East, oil theft in the South South, kidnapping in the North Central, and banditry in the North West. He cannot be physically present in every forest in Maradun, every village in Isa, every bush in Batsari, or every hamlet in Danko-Wasagu at the same time. That is why we have governors.
If we must be honest, the question we should be asking is: What have the North West governors done with their security votes and their powers as chief security officers.
Let us be honest as northerners and as Nigerians. The banditry in the North West did not start on May 29, 2023, when President Tinubu was sworn in.
This crisis is over 12 years old. It began as a simple farmer-herder misunderstanding, degenerated into cattle rustling, then into reprisal attacks between ‘Yan Sakai security groups and pastoralists, then into village raids, mass kidnapping for ransom, illegal gold mining terrorism, and full-blown banditry with sophisticated weapons.
Under President Muhammadu Buhari, a son of Katsina, the North West became almost ungovernable. Zamfara was losing dozens of people daily. Katsina, the home state of the President, was under siege. Sokoto East – Sabon Birni, Isa, Goronyo – became a killing field. Kebbi South was being raided. At that time, nobody said Tinubu was to blame, simply because he was not in power.
How then does a 12-year-old crisis suddenly become the fault of a President who has spent about four years in office, especially when that President has shown more decisive commitment to ending it than his predecessors?
In less than four years, President Tinubu has done more to confront insecurity in the North West than many are willing to admit.
First, he overhauled the entire security architecture. He appointed Malam Nuhu Ribadu, a man who intimately understands the security dynamics of the North, as National Security Adviser; and Malam Bello Muhammad (Matawallen Maradun), former Zamfara State governor who knows every forest and every security challenge in the zone, as Minister of State for Defence. He also appointed capable service chiefs, saddling them with the mandate of crushing banditry.
Second, he massively increased funding and operational freedom for the military. He approved the recruitment of thousands more soldiers and police operatives, authorised the acquisition of new attack helicopters, armed drones, and armoured personnel carriers, specifically for Operation Fansan Yamma and Operation Hadarin Daji. He ordered the military to go after bandits, not just to repel them.
Third, he authorised sustained, aggressive aerial bombardments of bandit camps across forests of the North West. In the last twelve months alone, many notorious bandit kingpins terrorizing our people for years have been eliminated by the Nigerian Armed Forces. Villages that were abandoned for three years are now being rehabilitated, with indigenes resettled. And markets are reopening.
Fourth, he created a long-term solution: the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development. This is a masterstroke that assuaged the yearning of Fulani leaders who saw farmer-herder crisis as being occasioned by lack of modern livestock management structure, lack of grazing reserves, and lack of value chain. President Tinubu listened and created a whole ministry to solve the root cause, a feat no past Nigerian President achieved.
It is undeniable that some of the North West governors have failed their people. Security is local, intelligence is local, and bandits don’t fall from the sky. They live in villages, they buy fuel from filling stations, they buy food from the markets, they use motorcycles bought from the towns, and they charge levies through their informants in the local government areas.
When bandit leaders operate in local government areas for four years, collect taxes and decide who goes to farm and who does not, that is not Tinubu’s failure. It is the governors’ failure.
How can a state collect billions in security vote and not have functional community policing, not have properly funded and profiled local security network, and not have a resettlement and reconciliation programme? How can a state where informants live within the government house and supply information to bandits claim it is Tinubu’s fault?
President Tinubu cannot police every village in the North West from Abuja. That is the governors’ job. And they must be held accountable.
As we approach 2027, I appeal to our leaders in the North West: let us stop playing politics with the blood of our people. People are dying, and we must unite to end the killings. The solution is not in blaming Tinubu. The solution is in synergy.
The North West governors must meet as a bloc and truly agree on a joint security levy, a joint community policing framework, and a joint livestock and rehabilitation programme. They must stop competing for federal allocation and start cooperating to secure lives and property.
President Tinubu is fighting insecurity in the zone with heavy funding, new equipment, renewed strength, and strong political will. As he takes responsibility at the federal level, the North West governors must take responsibility at the state level.
To secure lives in the zone, the governors must cooperate with the federal government. Blaming Tinubu alone is sheer mischief, and it will not restore normalcy in our farms, markets, and villages.
Let us support President Tinubu to finish the good job he has started.
Gidado Siddiki is the Coordinator of Movement for Equity in Nigeria (MEN)
