Misplaced Blame, Missed Priorities: Why Targeting Matawalle Won’t Fix Nigeria’s Security Crisis

By James Ezema

A U.S.-based lawmaker, Kimberly Daniels, recently called for the removal of Nigeria’s Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, stirring predictable reactions across political and media spaces. Yet, beneath the headlines lies a more important question: is Nigeria’s deepening insecurity the failure of one man or the consequence of entrenched systemic weaknesses?

Reducing a complex, multi-layered national security crisis to the performance of a single officeholder is not only analytically flawed—it risks distracting from the structural reforms Nigeria urgently needs.

A CRISIS DECADES IN THE MAKING

Nigeria’s insecurity did not begin with Matawalle, nor with the current administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. From the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East to banditry in the North-West and communal conflicts/farmers/herders clashes in parts of the Middle Belt, the country’s security challenges are rooted in long-standing governance gaps.

These include:
I. Weak policing structures and chronic underfunding of the Nigerian Police Force
II. Poor intelligence coordination across security agencies
III. Proliferation of small arms and porous borders
IV. Socioeconomic drivers such as poverty, unemployment, and rural marginalisation
V. Over-reliance on the military for internal security duties

Any serious diagnosis must begin here—not with a politically convenient scapegoat.

MATAWALLE’S RECORD: A MORE BALANCED VIEW

Since his appointment as Minister of State for Defence in 2023, Matawalle has operated within a highly centralised and historically constrained security architecture. Yet, within these limitations, his contributions have been tangible and deserve objective recognition.

First, he has been instrumental in supporting expanded military operations against bandit enclaves in the North-West, particularly through enhanced coordination between ground forces and air components. These operations have disrupted several criminal networks and led to the neutralisation of key warlords.

Second, Matawalle has consistently advocated for both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches, recognising that force alone cannot resolve insurgencies. His experience as a former governor of Zamfara State informed initiatives that combined military pressure with local engagement strategies aimed at de-escalating violence.

Third, under his watch, there has been increased emphasis on troop welfare and logistics support, including improved supply lines and operational readiness—critical factors often overlooked in public discourse but essential to battlefield effectiveness.

Fourth, he has played a role in strengthening Nigeria’s defence diplomacy, engaging regional and international partners to support intelligence sharing and counterterrorism cooperation.

None of these efforts suggest perfection. But they do indicate active engagement with the problem—not complicity in it, as some narratives have implied without substantiated proof.

THE DANGER OF SIMPLISTIC NARRATIVES

The recommendation by Kimberly Daniels reflects a broader trend in international commentary: the urge to personalise systemic failures. While such positions may be well-intentioned, they often lack the contextual depth required to understand Nigeria’s unique security environment.

Symbolic dismissals do not achieve security sector reform. In fact, abrupt leadership changes without structural adjustments can disrupt continuity, weaken morale, and create further instability within the ranks.

Blaming Matawalle alone risks creating a false sense of action while leaving the real problems untouched.

THE REAL ISSUE: A DISTORTED SECURITY ARCHITECTURE

At the heart of Nigeria’s security crisis lies a fundamental misalignment: the military has been overstretched with internal security responsibilities that should primarily belong to the police.

The Nigeria Police Force, constitutionally mandated to handle internal law enforcement, has been weakened over decades by inadequate funding, poor training, and limited operational capacity.

As a result:
I. Soldiers are deployed for routine policing duties.
II. Military resources are stretched thin across multiple internal theatres.
III. Response times and intelligence gathering suffer
IV. Civil-military relations become strained.

The current approach is neither sustainable nor strategically sound.

A WAY FORWARD: REBALANCING SECURITY RESPONSIBILITIES

Rather than focusing on individual removals, Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration should prioritise a phased and deliberate restructuring of Nigeria’s internal security framework.

This must include:
I. Gradual re-equipping and modernisation of the Nigeria Police Force—with emphasis on mobility, communications, forensic capacity, and community policing.
II. Comprehensive retraining programmes to enhance professionalism and intelligence-led policing
III. Decentralisation of policing structures, allowing for more responsive state and local security mechanisms
IV. Strategic withdrawal of the military from routine internal operations, reserving its deployment for specialised interventions and external defence roles
V. Strengthening inter-agency coordination, ensuring seamless collaboration between police, intelligence services, and the armed forces.

Only through such systemic reforms can Nigeria build a security architecture capable of addressing both current threats and future risks.

CONCLUSION: BEYOND BLAME TO SOLUTIONS

Nigeria is currently facing a crucial moment. The temptation to assign blame to individuals may offer short-term political satisfaction, but it does little to resolve long-standing structural deficiencies, such as inadequate infrastructure, corruption, and ineffective governance that require comprehensive solutions.

Dr Bello Matawalle is not above scrutiny—no public official should be. However, any fair assessment must be grounded in evidence, context, and a clear understanding of institutional constraints.

The path to lasting security lies not in scapegoating but in bold, systemic reform. It lies in rebuilding institutions, redefining roles, and restoring balance within Nigeria’s security ecosystem.

Above all, it requires leadership that is willing to confront complexity—not reduce it.

Until then, calls for removal—no matter how loudly amplified—risk being nothing more than noise in place of necessary action.

Comrade James Ezema is a journalist, political strategist, and public affairs analyst. He serves as National Vice-President (Investigation) of the Nigerian Guild of Investigative Journalists (NGIJ) and National President of the Association of Bloggers and Journalists Against Fake News (ABJFN). He writes from Abuja, Nigeria.

Nigerian Opposition: What You Have to Do

By Prince Charles Dickson PhD

“And Jesus said to Judas… what you are going to do, do quickly.”

There is a hard, almost rude lesson in that line. History does not wait for the timid to finish their committee meeting. Politics, especially Nigerian politics, is not kind to hesitation dressed as strategy. It rewards those who understand timing, nerve, structure, and the brutal arithmetic of power. That is where the Nigerian opposition now stands: not at the edge of impossibility, but at the edge of urgency.

The first truth is the one opposition politicians do not enjoy hearing at rallies where microphones are loud and introspection is scarce. They are not getting it right. The evidence is not only in Tinubu’s strength, but in their own disorder. INEC said on February 5, 2026, that there were now 21 registered political parties and warned that persistent internal leadership crises within parties pose a serious threat to democratic consolidation. Eight days later, the commission formally released the notice and timetable for the 2027 general elections. In other words, this is no longer the season of abstract grumbling. The whistle has gone. The race is live.

Yet the opposition often behaves like students who entered the examination hall with righteous anger but forgot their pens. Too much of its energy is spent on lamentation, rumours, courtroom oxygen, personality feuds, and that old Nigerian hobby of mistaking noise for architecture. You cannot defeat an incumbent machine by forming a WhatsApp coalition of wounded egos and calling it national salvation. Voters may clap for drama, but they still ask the unromantic question: who is in charge, what is the plan, and why should we trust you with the keys?

Now comes the more uncomfortable truth. The opposition is not facing an ordinary incumbent. It is facing Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a man whose political DNA was forged in opposition. He is not merely benefiting from power; he understands opposition as craft, pressure, infiltration, timing, persistence, and theatre. In his June 12, 2025 Democracy Day speech, he taunted rivals by saying it was “a pleasure to witness” their disarray, while also reminding Nigerians that he once stood almost alone against an overbearing ruling machine. This was not casual banter. It was a warning shot from a politician who knows both the grammar of resistance and the machinery of incumbency.

That is why copying Tinubu’s old template will not be enough. Yes, the coalition instinct is understandable. In July 2025, major opposition figures including Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi aligned under the ADC banner, presenting themselves as a bulwark against one-party drift, with David Mark as interim chairman. But here is the problem: Tinubu’s own coalition history worked not simply because men gathered in one room and glared at the ruling party. It worked because there was a disciplined merger logic, state-level anchoring, message coordination, and a ruthless understanding of elite bargaining. What the present opposition sometimes offers instead is photocopy politics with low toner: a coalition of convenience trying to frighten a man who practically wrote the Nigerian handbook on political accommodation, defection management, and patient conquest.

This is also why the opposition’s moral complaint, though not baseless, cannot be its only language. Yes, concerns about democratic shrinkage are real. Tinubu himself publicly denied that Nigeria is moving toward a one-party state, even as defections from opposition parties to the APC intensified and his own party welcomed them. But to say “democracy is in danger” is not yet the same thing as building a democratic alternative. Nigerians do not eat constitutional anxiety for breakfast. They want a credible opposition that can protect pluralism and still explain food prices, jobs, security, power supply, transport costs, and what exactly it would do on Monday morning after taking office.

On the government’s side, the picture is mixed enough to make both triumphalism and apocalypse look unserious. Reuters reported this week that the World Bank expects Nigeria’s economy to grow by about 4.2% in 2026, with external buffers improving and the debt-to-GDP ratio falling for the first time in a decade. Inflation had eased to 15.06% in February from roughly 33% in late 2024. Those are not imaginary numbers, and any fair-minded analysis must admit that Tinubu’s reforms have altered the macroeconomic conversation. But the same report warned that the Iran war has pushed fuel prices up by more than 50%, with obvious consequences for transport, food, and household pain. Add the continuing insecurity, underscored again this week by the killing of a Nigerian army general in Borno, and the government begins to look like a man who has repaired the roof but left half the house still flooding. That is not collapse. It is not command either. It is meandering reform under political stress.

So what must the opposition do, and do quickly? First, it must stop making Tinubu the only subject of the campaign. Anti-Tinubu is not a manifesto. It is a mood. Moods trend; structures win. Second, it must settle leadership questions early and publicly, because no voter wants to hire a rescue team still fighting over the steering wheel. Third, it needs an issue coalition, not just an elite coalition. Security, inflation, youth jobs, electricity, federalism, and institutional reform must become a coherent national offer, not a buffet of press conference talking points. Fourth, it must build from the states upward. Presidential romance without subnational organisation is political karaoke: loud, emotional, and usually off-key by the second verse.

Fifth, it must look seriously at the legal terrain. The Electoral Act 2026 has made party organisation even more central. PLAC notes that the new law tightens party registration rules, removes deemed registration, expands INEC’s regulatory discretion, and preserves the fact that candidates still need political parties as the vehicle for contesting most elective offices because independent candidacy is not permitted. In plain language, parties matter even more now. A fragmented opposition is therefore not just aesthetically untidy. It is strategically suicidal.

Still, there are dangers in the opposite direction too. A desperate anti-Tinubu mega-bloc could become a cargo truck of incompatible ambitions. If all it offers is the promise to defeat one man, it may reproduce the same habits it condemns once power arrives. Nigeria does not need a ruling party so swollen that democracy gasps for air. But it also does not need an opposition whose only ideology is turn-by-turn revenge. The health of democracy lies somewhere between monopoly and mob. It requires competition with content, not merely competition with bitterness. Tinubu himself, in that same June 12 speech, defended multiparty politics even while mocking the opposition’s disorder. That irony should not be wasted. He has thrown them both an insult and an assignment.

So, yes, the opposition is right to worry. But worry is not strategy. Outrage is not organisation. Coalition is not coherence. And history is not sentimental. The man they are up against is ruthless, seasoned, and intimate with the dark arts of democratic combat. He knows the game. Some of his opponents are still learning the rules from old newspaper cuttings.

Which brings us back to the scripture. What you are going to do, do quickly. Not recklessly. Not hysterically. Quickly. Settle your house. Name your purpose. Offer something fresher than recycled indignation. Build a machine that is not merely anti-Tinubu but pro-Nigeria in a way ordinary Nigerians can feel in their pockets and in their pulse. Otherwise, the opposition will keep arriving at battle dressed in borrowed armour, only to discover that the tailor works for the man they came to unseat—May Nigeria win!

 Jigawa 2027: Between Namadi’s Legacy and the Circling Shadows

By Ahmad Sunusi

Jigawa State, like its counterparts across the Nigerian federation, is buzzing with political activities and various forms of electioneering campaigns. However, while opposition parties are working tirelessly—deploying every tactic, including outright falsehoods—to persuade the people to buy into their empty promises, the citizens themselves appear largely unfazed by such antics. Even the perceived cracks within the APC, reportedly orchestrated by a former governor and minister, do not seem to trouble the people of Jigawa.

One may wonder why, in a political environment such as Nigeria’s—where noise often substitutes for substance—we are witnessing a relatively calm atmosphere in Jigawa. The answer lies in Governor Umar Namadi. Since assuming office in 2023, he has charted a different course, defined less by rhetoric and more by measurable outcomes. For a state like Jigawa, long regarded as agrarian and structurally modest, the emergence of a governance model anchored on deliberate and incremental impact deserves close attention.

While Nigerian political commentary often swings between exaggeration and outright dismissal of impact, what is unfolding in Jigawa under Namadi occupies a rare middle ground—marked by transformation that is both tangible and verifiable.

At the core of the Namadi administration’s approach is the “Greater Jigawa Initiative,” a structured development framework that departs from the ad hoc governance style that has historically characterised many subnational governments. Rather than scattershot interventions, the state appears to be pursuing a layered strategy—agriculture, infrastructure, healthcare, youth empowerment, and institutional reform—each reinforcing the other.

Take agriculture, for instance. As the economic mainstay for nearly 90 percent of the population, getting it right is not optional. There is a broad consensus that policy missteps in this sector can have devastating ripple effects. With this understanding, the Namadi administration has embarked on targeted investments in tangible assets and programmes designed to sustain agricultural growth. The procurement of tractors, modern farming implements, and similar interventions is aimed at addressing productivity constraints that have long trapped rural farmers in subsistence cycles.

Beyond mechanisation, however, the deeper shift is structural—the alignment of agriculture with broader economic policy. The push toward agro-processing zones and value-chain development reflects an understanding that farming alone does not create wealth; processing and market access must also be prioritised. Here, Namadi’s background as an accountant becomes evident. The reality in Jigawa today reveals a clear preference for systems over rhetoric—an approach capable of delivering lasting impact.

Infrastructure has also seen renewed commitment. The construction of over 500 kilometres of rural roads is not merely about connectivity; it is about economic circulation. When rural communities—who sustain the state’s economy through farming—can access markets efficiently and move goods and labour with ease, the entire local economy begins to function more effectively. Where there are roads, opportunity often follows.

Equally significant is the 1,500-unit housing project valued at ₦6 billion, a move that addresses both urban pressure and social stability. In many Nigerian states, housing projects are often reduced to political showpieces—announced with fanfare but rarely completed. In Jigawa, however, available evidence suggests a departure from that pattern. The administration’s focus appears to be on completion and functionality.

Perhaps the most consequential investments are those that do not immediately capture media attention—particularly in education and healthcare. In education, for instance, Namadi has overseen the renovation of over 700 classrooms, alongside targeted improvements in literacy and numeracy under programmes such as Jigawa UNITE. This reflects a recognition that development is generational and must be approached with urgency. The underlying philosophy is clear: a competitive state cannot be built on a weak educational foundation.

Similarly, developments in healthcare tell a story of resolve. The upgrading of 287 ward-level health centres, coupled with direct financing to hundreds of primary healthcare facilities, signals a decentralised approach aimed at bringing healthcare closer to the people rather than concentrating it in urban centres. When combined with partnerships delivering vaccines, nutritional support, and free medical interventions, a consistent pattern emerges—one of deliberate, collaborative service delivery.

Youth empowerment is another critical pillar. Often reduced elsewhere to tokenistic handouts, the approach in Jigawa appears more structured. The establishment of the Jigawa State Youth Employment and Empowerment Agency institutionalises this effort. The scale of impact—reaching hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries, particularly women—suggests a deliberate effort to carry all demographics along in the development process.

Then there is the less glamorous but equally vital aspect: governance itself. Jigawa State’s adoption of open governance frameworks, including public access to financial records and project timelines, marks a significant shift from opacity. While many states operate closed fiscal systems, Namadi’s administration appears committed to transparency as a governing principle. Practices such as budget padding and project duplication—common in less transparent systems—find little room to thrive in such an environment. Transparency here is not just a virtue; it is a deliberate disruption.

This may explain why the state is attracting recognition beyond its size. From innovation awards to strong budget performance rankings, the indicators suggest that something is working. However, it would be intellectually dishonest to portray the situation as flawless.

Despite its progress, Jigawa—like many states in Northern Nigeria—continues to face broader challenges, including poverty, climate vulnerability, and the ever-present risk of insecurity spilling over from neighbouring regions. The relative peace the state enjoys today is as much a product of proactive governance as it is of geography. Sustaining this balance will require vigilance and continuity.

There is also the issue of scalability. Can these reforms endure beyond the current administration? Nigerian states are replete with abandoned “legacy projects” that failed to survive political transitions. The true test of Namadi’s model will depend not only on what is built, but on whether those achievements can outlive his tenure. Nonetheless, there is a discipline in his governance style that is difficult to ignore.

Ultimately, the sustainability of Namadi’s impact depends on continuity beyond 2027. Such continuity would ensure that the current trajectory is maintained—moving from policy conception to full implementation. It offers the opportunity to build not just infrastructure, but a governance culture rooted in results rather than applause.

However, this cannot be achieved by the governor alone. The people of Jigawa must also play their part. This is a defining moment—one that calls for active participation at the polls, for citizens to defend the mandate they granted in 2023, and to resist the “circling shadows,” both within and outside the ruling party, whose primary interest may be power rather than progress. Jigawa cannot afford regression. The choice, as always, rests with the people.

Ahmad writes from Dutse.