By MS Abubakar

In Nigeria’s recent history, few public officers have been tried in the court of public opinion as swiftly and as harshly as General Christopher Gwabin Musa, CFR. A soldier’s soldier. A professional. A man who, by his own admission, has only ever sought to serve Nigeria.

Today, that same man stands as the Honourable Minister of Defence of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. His return to national service is not just a political appointment. It is, in every sense of the word, a vindication — by God, by history, and by those who once counted him an adversary.

The 2023 ECOWAS Moment: Obedience in a Storm

To understand the weight of that vindication, we must go back to July 2023. General Abdourahamane Tchiani overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum of the Republic of Niger.

As Chairman of ECOWAS, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, was confronted with a grave constitutional crisis on Nigeria’s northern border. After diplomatic options stalled, ECOWAS Heads of State authorised the use of force as a last resort to restore constitutional order in Niger.

The task of military planning and mobilisation fell to the then Chief of Defence Staff, General C.G. Musa. He was not making policy. He was executing the lawful orders of his Commander-in-Chief, as required by the 1999 Constitution and the Armed Forces Act.

That is where the trouble began.

Within days, a narrative emerged, especially on social media and in some Northern circles, that the CDS was pursuing a personal agenda. Commentators claimed General Musa was “out to avenge” Christians of Southern Kaduna, particularly those affected by violence in Zangon-Kataf and environs over the years. The accusation was simple and damaging: the act was not a national duty. This was ethnic and religious reprisal in uniform.

The allegation went viral. Clips were shared. Sermons were preached. Editorials were written.

What was missing in that storm was a voice of institutional defence. The National Security Adviser and the then Honourable Minister of Defence, both Muslims, chose to remain silent. No clarification. No public pushback. An officer carrying out constitutional orders was left to defend his name alone.

The Second Storm: The Banditry Debate

If the Niger episode was about loyalty, what followed was about conviction.

Shortly after, General Musa made his position on insecurity public and unequivocal: there should be no negotiations with terrorists and bandits. His argument was rooted in operational experience from the Northeast and Northwest. Negotiations, he insisted, had only emboldened criminal networks. What was required was sustained kinetic action, community defence, and the dismantling of the bandit economy.

For that stance, he paid a price. He was retired from service. To many observers at the time, it looked like the end of a career. The system had moved on.

But public memory is long. And the security situation did not improve by pretending the problem away.

The First Vindication: Called Back to Serve

Then, “out of the blues”, President Tinubu recalled him. Not as CDS, but to a higher political office: Honourable Minister of Defence.

That recall was more than a second chance. It was an institutional admission. The same convictions that were once deemed too hardline were now needed at the centre of national security policy. The same officer, once accused of bias, was now trusted to superintend the entire defence architecture of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious nation.

That is divine vindication. When men write you off, history writes you back in.

The Second Vindication: Respect Across the Border

But God’s vindication was not the only one. There is also the vindication of man. And in this case, the most unlikely of men.

I was reliably informed by a source within the office of General Abdourahamane Tchiani, President of Niger, that General Musa is held in very high esteem by the Nigerien junta.

Not in spite of 2023, but because of how he conducted himself.

According to the account, two things stand out to them: his professionalism as a military officer and his personal character of integrity and empathy. Even across the divide of a threatened military intervention, the Nigerien leadership distinguishes between the office, the orders, and the man.

They do not see a religious crusader. They see a professional soldier who did his duty without malice.

Let it be clear: I am not a personal staff member of the minister nor a contractor with the Ministry of Defence. I have no contract to protect and no brief to sell. I write this simply as a Nigerian reflecting on how providence can clear the name of the innocent and how character outlives propaganda.

Why This Matters for Nigeria

The Musa episode reveals three truths about Nigeria that we must confront if we want peace.

1. We criminalise obedience.
A soldier obeys lawful orders. That is the foundation of civil-military relations. When we attack officers for carrying out policy, and we stay silent when they do, we create an incentive for future officers to be timid. A timid military is a danger to democracy.

2. We reduce national issues to ethno-religious contests.
The quickest way to delegitimise any Northern Christian officer is to label “him as “anti-Muslim”. The quickest way to delegitimise any Northern Muslim officer is to tag him as “pro-establishment.” General Musa was accused because of where he comes from, not what he did. That is dangerous. It means no officer from any minority community in the North can rise without suspicion.

3. We forget that conviction has a cost.
His position on bandits — no negotiation, no ransom — was unpopular with some, but it was consistent. Today, that position is closer to government policy than it was two years ago. Vindication often comes late because truth is often early.

An Admonition to Northern Nigeria

This brings me to my final point.

Northern Nigeria is not a monolith. It is a multi-cultural, multi-faith society. Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Nupe, Tiv, Idoma, Jukun, Berom, Bajju, Kataf, and over a hundred other groups call it home. Christians and Muslims have lived, traded, farmed, and fought side by side for centuries.

We cannot build a peaceful North by casting people as “outsiders” in their own land. We cannot develop if every appointment, every promotion, and every military operation is read through the lens of faith or ethnicity.

No Nigerian should be castigated, ridiculed, victimised, harassed, or blackmailed because of their faith or ethnicity. No officer should be called a “religious avenger” for doing his job. No citizen should be told he does not belong because his surname or his church is different.

The North will only witness peace and development when we accept people as they are and allow them to contribute their quota. When a Kataf child and a Fulani child can go to the same school without fear. When a Christian officer and a Muslim officer can both rise to CDS without their religion becoming a headline.

That is the Nigeria General Musa has served. That is the Nigeria we must all serve.

Conclusion: The Measure of a Man

Leadership is not tested in peace. It is tested in controversy.

General Christopher G. Musa was accused, retired, and counted out. He is now back, not by lobbying, but by record. He is respected, not just in Abuja, but even in Niamey, by those who once faced him across a border.

That is what vindication looks like.

It is God restoring. It is history correcting. It is adversaries admitting, quietly, that the man was professional all along.

May we learn from this. May we judge our public officers by their service to Nigeria, not by the tribe of their father or the church or mosque they attend.

For in the end, Nigeria does not belong to one faith or one ethnic group. Nigeria belongs to all of us. And it is only when we all belong that Nigeria will work for all of us.

 

Of banditry and a shared sovereignty (3)

By Hassan Gimba

This is the concluding part of this series. The first two editions were published two weeks ago. Although the article was originally written in 2022, its message remains as timely and relevant today as it was then. With insecurity continuing to ravage every region of the country, leaving citizens in constant fear and uncertainty, the issues it raises remain urgent and worthy of renewed attention.

Last week, they attacked an estate within Abuja. Gunmen, bandits, Boko Haram, those who “drag” sovereignty with Nigeria, attacked Genuine Estate, within the vicinity of Gwarimpa, Nigeria’s (some accounts say south of the Sahara’s) largest housing estate. They did this undisturbed and calmly, between 1 and 4 am on Sunday. The police said it was a robbery. Residents, however, said they kidnapped some of their people. Now, we all know that robbers hardly take prisoners. It is now left for people to believe who they want to believe.

But based on precedent, I will want to believe the residents because the police, in more than one case, do not say what we know is the truth. Perhaps, for security reasons.

On Tuesday, May 17, an explosion rocked Winners, a nursery and primary school in the Sabon Gari area of Kano metropolis, in which buildings were destroyed, and about nine people were killed. The police told us it was a gas explosion. A week later, they changed the story: they said an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) caused it, and that they had arrested two people.

However, this doublespeak has become the norm with our government and its agencies while marauders keep terrorising the nation with unperturbed impunity.

We have always seized the opportunity to point out that apart from other parts of the country, “Abuja, the nation’s capital, is itself not exempt. Bandits operating in Niger State to the West, Kogi to the South, Kaduna to the North, and Nasarawa to the East have surrounded Abuja, and there is a need for a clinical onslaught against them. The Fulani settlements in these areas have to be forensically combed. Quite a few of the rugas around Kuje, Lugbe, and close to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport are alleged to be used by bandits to store weapons.”

Within the town itself, you move at your own risk because hoodlums have taken over major spots. Robbery attacks are recurring themes in dark places, especially on bridges, in wooded spots, and at pedestrian crossings. The ever-busy Apo-Maitama expressway, pedestrian bridges, and roundabouts at Area One and Wuse Market, and from Zone 7 down to Berger and up to the Abuja-Kubwa-Kaduna expressway, are among the major areas frequented by criminal elements. From City Gate to Gwagwalada is another dangerous habitat for these criminal elements.

The southern part of Nigeria, too, has its share of warlords. Just as the North is in the grip of terrorists wrongly addressed as bandits, the South West was on the verge of being made ungovernable by a man called Sunday Igboho. He determined who lives there or not.

While Sunday Igboho in the South West has been tamed, all thanks to the Benin Republic authorities, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), are still strong in the South East.

The South West, which is the most organised geopolitical zone in the country, is now tame, unlike most of the North and South East.

Apart from the killings of indigenes, termed Sabo (for saboteur) and non-indigenes, mostly from the North, there is a lot of propaganda – and insults – coming out from the South East. Some say that’s because they want “independence”, and others say it’s because they want the presidency. Whichever, their method is the wrong one. You can’t fight everyone and yet want them to consider you. Insults, blackmail and threats to life are their major weapons. I pity the judge handling the case of Nnamdi Kanu.

Well, all the happenings in the various regions of the country that have made the Nigerian state share sovereignty with non-state actors are because of the authorities’ inability to punish lawbreakers. Whoever committed whatever crime must not go unpunished.

The way it is now, anything can happen. The most abominable things can occur at any time. While the security agencies are overwhelmed, crime news, too, overwhelms newsmen, so that a lot goes unreported for want of space or time. The sad narrative is becoming the norm. And whenever the President’s spokespersons deem it fit to make any comment, it is the usual “condemnation”. Perhaps they do not know that you condemn the actions of those whose condemnation will hurt, not those who are competing with you for sovereignty.

The president usually ends up with an infuriating, half-hearted, lukewarm order to the security forces to fish out the perpetrators or to move to “the theatre of war”. We have seen how, on more than one occasion, he gave that order to service chiefs. Without hearing a counter order, they would be back in Abuja, and it would be business as usual, only for something to happen for him to renew the ineffective order.

Many security experts believe that the people have to take back their lands by themselves if such a government response to crime continues.

On January 3, 2022, writing on this page under the headline ‘Banditry and our quest for leadership’, we observed that: “One solution is for the government to organise a people’s militia that will flush out all those marauders. It can encourage each local government to muster at least 5,000 of its youth who will be trained to confront the bandits. The Nigerian government should transform the war against the bandits into a people’s war for self-defence by training and arming these youths. We must take the battle to every inch of the space occupied by the bandits. Possibly, all settlements in the bush should be cleared and moved to the main roads.

“That strategy proved successful in both Iraq and Syria. But it is not only in Iraq or Somalia. Here in Nigeria, some communities have stood eyeball to eyeball with bandits and insurgents and, as a result, found themselves some peace. Biu in Borno State and Azare in Bauchi State readily come to mind.

“When Boko Haram members set the people of Biu in their sights, killing them arbitrarily, the elders met and decided to “kill the enemy within”. Known community members who aided the terrorists were arrested in a sting operation and summarily executed. Extrajudicial, of course, but it was a period of war, and self-survival was paramount. Putting sentiment aside, parents gave up their sons, friends pointed at friends, and all culprits were dealt with. Boko Haram chiefs had to send a delegation to the town seeking a truce. Since then, Biu found peace as Boko Haram never attacked them again, leaving them in peace while other northeastern towns whose people cringed in fear have known no respite from Boko Haram.”

This is also what happened in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State. Tired of being at the mercy of Boko Haram and being at the receiving end of soldiers’ mop-up operations, the youths, backed by elders and approved by the government and with support from the army, formed what came to be known as the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) for short. They drove the insurgents, false jihadists, out of the towns and into the bushes.

I foresee this happening also in the South East. The people will rise to take back their lives. The hurtful sit-at-home orders and the barbarous threat of IPOB/ESN hovering over them like the Sword of Damocles will push them to shake off the fear of their tormentors.

Fighting insecurity and the looming anarchy is too serious to be left in the hands of those who think they are safe and unassailable.

Concluded

Hassan Gimba, ANIPR, is the Publisher and CEO of Neptune Prime.

The $2,500 Threshold: Why Raising Nigeria’s GDP Per Capita Is Our Best Non-Kinetic Strategy for Peace

 

By MS Abubakar, PhD..

 

One scholar I learnt a great deal from during my short course at Oxford University is Prof. Sir Paul Collier.

 

In one lecture that has stayed with me, he made a simple but sobering point: democracies with a GDP per capita below $2,500 are statistically prone to crisis and conflict. For democracy to deliver prosperity and stability, a country must cross that $2,500 mark.

 

That lesson has never felt more urgent than now.

 

Here in Nigeria, our GDP per capita currently hovers between $1,069 and $1,200 according to 2024 IMF and World Bank data. We are less than half of Collier’s stability threshold. Meanwhile, countries with durable peace and development — the OECD states and Scandinavian countries — operate at between $55,000 and $90,000 per capita.

 

If Collier is right, and the data suggests he is, then our security problem is, at its core, an economic and human development problem. And the solution cannot be guns alone.

 

What is GDP per capita, and why should a security man care?

 

GDP per capita is simply Gross Domestic Product divided by population. It tells us the average economic output per Nigerian in one year.

 

But it tells us something else too: the size of the national cake per citizen, and by extension, the resources available to the state to keep the social contract alive.

 

When GDP per capita is low, government revenue is low. When revenue is low, schools are underfunded, hospitals lack drugs, police lack equipment, and courts move slowly. When the state cannot provide, citizens look elsewhere — to ethnic militias, to bandits, to extremist preachers, to “self-help.”

 

Collier’s research in Wars, Guns and Votes shows this clearly. New democracies that are poor are fragile democracies. Poverty creates grievances. Grievances create recruits. And recruits make conflict sustainable.

 

Above roughly $2,500 per capita, states begin to have enough fiscal space to pay workers, build roads, fund education, and respond to citizens. Democracy begins to “pay.” People have jobs to lose. Communities have businesses to protect. The cost of violence becomes too high.

 

Nigeria at $1,100 is therefore not just poor. We are in the danger zone for democratic stability.

 

Prof Paul Collier: The Oxford Scholar Who Linked Poverty to War

 

Prof Paul Collier is Professor of Economics at Oxford and former Director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank. He is not a theorist detached from Africa. He spent years studying why some of the poorest countries stay poor.

 

His book, “The Bottom Billion”, argued that about 50 countries are trapped in poverty. Two of those traps define Nigeria’s reality:

 

1. The Conflict Trap: Civil war destroys growth by about 2.3% per year. But poverty itself also causes war. So you get a vicious cycle.
2. The Natural Resource Trap: Countries rich in oil but poor in institutions often grow slower, because resources fuel corruption and conflict instead of development.

 

In “Wars, Guns and Votes”, Collier showed with hard data that democracy without development is dangerous. The $2,500 per capita figure was not plucked from the air. It is where states historically gained the capacity to tax, spend, and deliver enough to make democracy legitimate.

 

His core message for Africa has always been ‘You cannot shoot your way out of poverty. You must grow your way out of conflict.

 

That is what he taught us at Oxford. And that is what Nigeria must now apply.

 

Nigeria’s Reality: $1,100 and Rising Insecurity

 

Let us be blunt with the numbers.

 

In 2014, Nigeria’s GDP per capita was about $2,200. Today it is about $1,100. The drop is due to two things: rapid population growth, and the devaluation of the naira.

 

Compare that to our aspirations. OECD average is $55,000. Norway is above $80,000. Even Ghana and Kenya are ahead of us on some human development indices.

 

What has this meant on the ground?

Underfunded schools produce unemployable graduates. Underfunded hospitals push people into poverty. Underfunded police cannot cover our vast territory. And when the state is absent, non-state actors fill the gap.

 

This is why kinetic operations alone will not end banditry in the North West, insurgency in the North East, or cult and separatist violence in the South. You can degrade a group today. But if the economic conditions that produced it remain, another group emerges tomorrow.

 

The Non-Kinetic Answer: Grow GDP Per Capita Through Human Development

 

If the problem is economic, the deepest solution must also be economic. This is the non-kinetic strategy.

 

How do we move from $1,100 to $2,500 and beyond? Not by oil windfalls alone. By investing deliberately in Human Development Index, HDI — health, education, and decent living standards.

 

Here is the chain:

 

1. Invest in Health and Education → Productivity Rises

A healthy child attends school. An educated youth gets a skill. A skilled worker earns more. Higher earnings mean higher productivity. Higher productivity raises GDP per capita. When a young man in Zamfara or Benue has a job in agro-processing or tech, he is no longer available for recruitment.

 

2. Raise State Capacity → Security Improves

At $2,500 per capita, government revenue roughly doubles. That means better-paid police, functional courts, rural roads, and primary health centres. Citizens begin to see the state as a provider, not an extractor. Trust in democracy increases, and protests are less likely to turn violent.

 

3. Break the Conflict Trap → Stability Becomes Self-Sustaining

Collier warned that war causes poverty and poverty causes war. By growing the economy and spreading opportunity, we cut that loop. A man with a farm, a shop, or a salary has something to lose in a crisis. Communities police themselves.

 

4. Give Democracy Legitimacy → Politics Stabilizes

Below $2,500, citizens ask, “What has democracy done for me?” Above it, democracy delivers light, water, and jobs. That is when elections stop being existential and start being about policy.

 

This is not theory. This is what the Scandinavians did after World War II. This is what South Korea did in the 1960s. They did not start with perfect security. They started with human capital, and security followed.

 

What Must Nigeria Do Now?

 

Crossing the $2,500 threshold will not happen in one budget cycle. But we must start with deliberate policy choices:

 

1. Prioritise HDI in the budget: Shift spending from consumption to education, primary healthcare, and vocational training. A naira spent on a child’s nutrition today is a naira saved on security tomorrow.
2. Create jobs at scale: Agro-value chains, solid minerals, digital services, and manufacturing. Jobs are the fastest way to raise per capita income outside Abuja and Lagos.
3. Fix the business environment: Power, credit, and infrastructure. Small businesses are where most Nigerians will cross into the middle class.
4. Use oil revenue to diversify, not to subsidise: Save and invest in human capital, as Norway did. Don’t spend it to keep prices artificially low.

 

None of this replaces the military. We still need our Armed Forces and Police to hold the line. But we must recognize their limits. Soldiers can contain violence. Only prosperity can prevent it.

 

Conclusion

 

As Prof. Collier taught us at Oxford, democracy is not self-sustaining. It rests on an economic foundation.

 

Nigeria is currently trying to run a 21st-century democracy on a $1,100 economy. The result is predictable: instability, protests, and violence.

 

If we are serious about peace, then the path does not start only in the barracks. It starts in our classrooms, in our clinics, in our factories, and on our farms.

 

Raise Human Development. Raise GDP per capita. Cross the $2,500 threshold.

 

That is how we move from a democracy of survival to a democracy of prosperity. That is how we secure Nigeria, not just for one election cycle, but for a generation.