Nigeria’s gripping national battle against insecurity seems to have a new theater in Kwara State as terrorists increasingly threaten to overrun one of Nigeria’s most iconic states.
Long heralded as one of Nigeria’s most peaceful states, even as insecurity tightened its fists on other states, instances of insecurity first emerged in disturbing pockets. In the past year, these trickles of insecurity have since flashed into floods that have left men, women, and children on the brink. According to reports, some communities have become ghost towns with survivors fleeing after the brutal killing of some residents. Traditional rulers have not been spared either.
In February, about 200 people were cut down by jihadists in Kaima. In November 2025, there was the attack on the Christ Apostolic Church in Eruku, Kwara State. Recently, about three brave Nigerian soldiers were gunned down in Kemanji, Kaima Local Government Area of the state.
The question that everyone concerned should be asking, and it should be all Nigerians, is this: why the sudden spike of insecurity in Kwara State, and what exactly is the government doing about it?
It is no secret that Nigeria is scoring really poorly on the major indices that indicate development, like human capital development, education, and health, but should the citizens of Africa’s largest democracy and economy also have to bear the backbreaking burden of devastating insecurity to go along with grinding poverty?
Unfortunately, under the very eyes of the APC administration, which has held the reins of power in Nigeria for the past eleven years, life in Nigeria has become brutish, nasty, and short.
In many rural communities where life is already pockmarked by a lack of resources and opportunities, non-state actors ride roughshod over people, uprooting entire communities, upturning lives, and overturning long-held roots.
At this table, which has yielded nothing but disaster, death, and devastation for Nigerians, sit jihadists, many of whom either operate as outright terrorists, Fulani herdsmen, or bandits. What alarms the most is that Nigeria seems unable to take decisive action to rein in insecurity.
All over the country, while brave young Nigerian soldiers continue to make sacrifices in defense of the country, terrorists are supposedly being deradicalized and reintegrated into society, when there are clear indications that they are compromising the war against terror.
Nigeria remains critically and criminally unsafe, and with each passing day, insecurity seems to spike, especially in rural areas where life was already perched on the precipice.
Entire families are caught in Nigeria’s tangled web of insecurity, and damningly, the government is more reluctant than ever to act. All those responsible appear interested in discussing is the impending 2027 elections.
Nigeria’s decision-makers, cocooned in Abuja, many of whom have their families abroad, may labor under the illusion that they are safe, but that illusion can only go so far. Insecurity’s insidious incisiveness means that a danger to one anywhere in Nigeria is a danger to all.
There is also a painful lesson in the tragic uncertainty many in Kwara State are enduring today. The lesson is one in leadership failure. In 2027, they must be able to draw from their deep well of suffering to find the courage they need to take the right decisions and make the necessary changes.
Ike Willie-Nwobu is a policy practitioner and social thinker. He can be reached at Ikewilly9@gmail.com.
