Massive gunfire, Mass abductions, kidnappings, farmers flee, retired and serving military Generals beg for their rescue and are taken captive in the hands of their abductors, yet the horror spreads. The highways turn into dens, the presidency issues orders, billions are paid for ransom, yet ordinary citizens stand unprotected, left marooned in their fait accompli. Sadly enough, this is how Nigeria’s security landscape has structurally transformed into a complicated paradox of conflict, policy pronouncement, and resilience, as of June 2026.

The above picture, which spans almost the six geopolitical zones, describes the current security climate in Nigeria regardless of the resolved efforts of the government, security agencies, and the indefatigable citizens to confront and thwart insecurity to a standstill.

No wonder, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his June 12 Democracy Day broadcast, reaffirmed that the war against insecurity was being won. He noted that military operations had successfully decimated more than 13,000 insurgents over the past year, that deaths from armed conflicts are down by 81% since 2015, and that over 124,000 terrorist fighters and dependents have laid down their arms since 2023 through Operation Safe Corridor.

Regardless, available data from the first half of 2026 tells a completely different story. A story that shudders and elicits goose bumps whenever the issues surrounding the security of lives and property are being discussed. So, when Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, while speaking at a high-level meeting at the UN headquarters in New York warned that weapons and stockpiles of arms looted during the 2011 Libya Uprising have continued to fuel insecurity across Nigeria and the entire Sahel region, one will be compelled to imagine the theatrics and ecosystem of insecurity and terrorism in a country deemed and naturally cut-out to be the pride of not Just West Africa, but the African continent at large.

According to the report made available by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), 266,787 complaints were recorded across the country in May, amid escalating kidnappings, killings, attacks on schools and places of worship, including growing insecurity. No fewer than 390 persons were killed, while 202 others were kidnapped, with children, worshippers, security personnel, and rural communities among the worst affected. The Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Dr Tony Ojukwu, who provided these insights, described the situation as one of the most ”devastating” periods for human rights in recent times, warning that the country was witnessing a humanitarian crisis that requires urgent national attention.

As such, the dialectics that define Nigeria’s security landscape in the first half of 2026 indicate that security agencies, particularly the military, are killing more terrorist fighters, reclaiming enclaves, and rescuing hostages. However, while the military relentlessly takes this warfare to the criminals, the armed groups are also killing more citizens, taxing more villages, and occupying new local communities and territories.

The Climate of Violence: North as the Epicentre of Insecurity, South Feels the Spill over

The three geo-political zones in Northern Nigeria, particularly the North-East remains the theatre of insecurity in Nigeria, but the boundaries are shifting. Data from Beacon Security and Innovations Limited (BSIL), indicated a risk-focused assessment of Nigeria’s security climate. According to the Managing Director, Dr Kabir Adamu, a comparative analysis of Nigeria’s Security Report for March and April 2026 revealed an increase in security incidents, fatalities, and the number of abductions. 11.27% incidents were observed, with 612 incidents in April, compared to 550 in March. Abductions were 105.51% increase from 345 to 709 in April. Fatalities had a 36.04% increase, from 777 in March to 1057 in April.

Similarly, in June, Nigerian troops rescued 364 abductees in different operations in Katsina and Borno states. The Leadership Newspaper of June 22 also highlighted that about 842 people were killed and 279 others abducted in 156 violent attacks recorded across Nigeria in May 2026. From the figures, violent attacks rose by 51.5%, fatalities increased by 90.1 per cent, while kidnappings climbed by 19.7% as compared to the same period in 2025. A further analysis of the data revealed that the Northern geopolitical zones bore the brunt of insecurity incidents
within the periods under review.

The Economics of Commercialization of Insecurity

Insecurity and contemporary violence or criminality in Nigeria is no longer merely a by-product of Ethnic and religious friction. Rather, it has evolved into a structured commercialized industry. As Nigeria loses the political will to tackle it, and as the state’s monopoly of force weakens, and a predatory economy has emerged where the state and non-state actors derive economic rent from instability. Currently, the six Geopolitical zones are grossly enmeshed in this predatory trade. The transformation of rural banditry into a high-stakes kidnapping for ransom.
Industry in North-West, the transition of the Boko Haram Insurgency into a war economy involving illicit fishing and agricultural taxation in the North-East, and the coincidence where states that are very rich in critical mineral resources have become Breeding grounds for insecurity exemplify the commercialization of insecurity in the country.

Kidnapping for ransom has become pervasive and of dire concern. Over time, Kidnappings for ransom have evolved into a sophisticated industry encompassing organised networks, informants, negotiators, financiers, and armed operatives. Primary and secondary schools, including religious houses, have become soft and easy targets for the enterprise. High-profile victims, including politically exposed persons, such as the abduction of the sister and her twin sons, of the former Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, on the abduction of Maj Gen Rabe Abubakar(RTD), a former military spokesperson and his wife, who tragically died in captivity, The May 15 kidnapping, where armed men abducted seven staff and 39 students, and pupils of Community Grammar School, Baptist Nursery and Primary School, and L.A. Primary School in Ahoro Esiele community in Orile district, where one of the teachers was beheaded, have remained classic examples of how criminality and terrorism have not only become highly commercialised, but also very profitable ventures.

Suffice it to state that ransom is just one revenue stream. Banditry, too, has evolved into an organised conflict economy with a plethora of income sources such as cattle rustling, illegal mining, protection levies, and forced taxation, among others.

The Safe Schools Initiative: Another Mere Policy Pronouncement

Since the launch of The Safe Schools Initiative in 2014, what has it achieved? Following its launch at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Nigeria by a coalition of Nigerian business leaders, working with the UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, the Global Business Coalition for Education and A World at School, this initiative has more or less become moribund.

It is pertinent to state that while the Safe Schools Initiative was birthed in response to the growing number of attacks on the right to education and the escalating violence against education in northern Nigeria, following the horrific kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls from Chibok, in an attempt to bolster physical security at schools by building boundary walls, and deploying armed security to sustain security in schools, the initiative has been relatively non-existent and has practically failed in its teething stage of operationalization.

The Safe Schools Initiative, sadly enough, has become a sad reminder of the several failed policy pronouncements of the government, laying credence to the belief that the Nigerian government, particularly the current administration, lacks the political will to confront and curtail insecurity to its barest minimum. With an initiative as laudable as this, and more than $30 million mobilised for its eventual take-off, incidents such as the Oyo school kidnapping in May 15 and other similar criminal abductions in schools across the country would have been a thing of the past.

The Strategic Flaws and Systematic Weaknesses

The fight against insecurity in Nigeria has revealed that certain structural weaknesses and strategic flaws have continued to perpetuate. These, among others, include: Poor intel and synergy among the security agencies, the challenges of ungoverned spaces, particularly in northern Nigeria, Strategy Somersault-integrating repentant terrorists into the security agencies while the war has not been won, and the lack of political will to dismember the sponsors of terrorism and fight terrorism and all forms of criminality in the country to a standstill.

There is no doubt that the Nigerian government is doing a lot to stymie the escalation of insecurity in the country. The recent deductions of about N500 bn from the Federation Account Allocation Committee revenue for May 2026 to fund a national security emergency intervention are a step in the right direction. In the same vein, the near commencement of State Policing and President Tinubu’s metrics of 13,000 insurgents killed and 124,000 surrendered are also significant. So are the rescues of 364 abductees in Borno and the recruitment of 1,000 forest guards in Katsina state.

Nevertheless, to the elites and urban poor in the metropolis, the state is winning the war. However, to the common Nigerians in the streets, the state is losing villages and its citizenry on a geometric basis. For them, it has been all motion, no movement. So, the trajectory in the last six months of 2026 has been that of a roller coaster. The question, therefore, that has been begging for an answer is; ‘’Is Nigeria fighting terrorism or an ecosystem of criminality, banditry, or sabotage?’’