Mairiga Tanimu
What was once dismissed as a rural crisis has arrived in Nigeria’s towns and cities — and a powerful coalition of southern and Middle Belt leaders says the federal government’s policies are directly to blame.
The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders’ Forum (SMBLF) sounded the alarm Thursday as a pattern emerged from two weeks of near-continuous violence: attacks that once targeted remote farming villages are now striking urban neighbourhoods, including Jos metropolis, the capital of Plateau State.
No fewer than 40 people were killed when gunmen struck Unguwan Rukuba — inside Jos — on Palm Sunday, alongside a simultaneous attack on Kahir Village in Kagarko County, Kaduna State. The following week, violence hit Gwer community in Benue State, killing at least 17; Nyago Gyel in Plateau State, leaving 3 dead; and Akyawa and Udege Kasa in Nasarawa State, where 11 were killed. Before those strikes, Boko Haram sacked Ngoshe town in southern Borno and detonated bombs in three locations across Maiduguri town. Kautikari, near Chibok, lost at least 12 residents to an Islamist terrorist raid. Nuku and Woro communities in Kwara State were attacked, with 170 people reported killed.
“What was reduced to mostly rural violence some years back is now creeping back into cities,” the SMBLF warned.
The forum, comprising the Middle Belt Forum, Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, and PANDEF, said the geographic expansion of violence was not accidental — it was the predictable consequence of a federal security policy that has consistently rewarded perpetrators and abandoned victims.
At the centre of that critique is Operation Open Corridor, a government program that spends billions of naira rehabilitating disengaged terrorists — feeding, clothing, training, and reintegrating them into society. The SMBLF called for its immediate abolition, arguing the program sends a clear signal to active terrorists that violence carries no lasting consequence.
That signal, the forum said, has been reinforced from the top. Chief of Defence Staff Lt. Gen. Olufemi Olatubosun Oluyede recently referred to terrorists as “prodigal sons” to be welcomed back. National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu described bandits and terrorists as “our brothers that we must live with.” The SMBLF said these statements reflect a broader institutional tolerance for mass violence that has allowed the crisis to metastasize from forests and rural communities into urban centres.
While terrorists are rehabilitated, their victims are warehoused. Displaced persons from attacks across the Northeast and Middle Belt remain in overcrowded IDP camps with no adequate food, shelter, healthcare, or security — a situation the forum described as both unjust and deliberately overlooked by the government.
The SMBLF also condemned state-level amnesty and pardon grants to bandits, saying there was no evidence any such measure had reduced violence. The pardons, the coalition argued, have consistently been read by criminal networks as institutional weakness, accelerating rather than deterring further attacks.
The forum is demanding a full overhaul of Nigeria’s security architecture, with clear accountability frameworks, stronger intelligence infrastructure, and properly equipped and motivated security forces. It is also calling for the regulated liberalization of civilian access to legal firearms — urging controlled distribution to responsible citizens and community-based security groups as an immediate stopgap where federal forces have proven unable to respond in time.
“Nigeria stands at a dangerous crossroads,” the statement concluded. “The current approach is failing, and time is running out.”
The statement was signed by HRM Oba Oladipo Olaitan, leader of SMBLF and Afenifere; Dr. Bitrus Pogu, president of the Middle Belt Forum; Senator John Azuta-Mbata, president-general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide; and Ambassador Godknows Igali, national chairman of PANDEF.
Middle-Belt Times 