By Steven Kefas
On December 12, 2025, Nigerian security operatives arrested a group of armed Fulani militants in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State. What followed should have triggered an immediate national security emergency.
In a video recorded during interrogation, one of the suspects calmly explained that officials of the Kwara State Government supplied them with the AK-47 rifles and the patrol vehicle in their possession.
According to him, they had been operating in the area “for a while” under the guise of patrol duties. “Ilorin government na him give us this motor and the weapons,” he said. “They were the ones that gave us the rifles.”
This was not the rambling of a cornered criminal improvising a story. Days later, the Kwara State Government itself issued a clarification confirming that the arrested armed men were members of Miyetti Allah, the Fulani socio-cultural organisation, and that they were participating in a federal security operation coordinated through the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).
In one stroke, Nigeria crossed a line that should alarm every serious observer of national security, human rights, and national stability: armed ethnic militia members linked to a group repeatedly accused of terrorism were officially embedded into state-backed “security operations.”
This is no longer about incompetence. It is about institutional collapse.
Vigilantes or Proxies?
Kwara State is not Fulani territory. It is a predominant Yoruba state, notwithstanding the historical emirate structure imposed during the 19th-century jihad of Usman dan Fodio. Over the past six months, Yoruba farming communities in Kwara have increasingly come under attack by Fulani terrorists.
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Against this backdrop, a fundamental question arises: why are Fulani “vigilantes” deployed in Yorubaland to provide security for Yoruba communities at the same time Fulani militias are widely implicated in the violence that those communities are fleeing.
Where are the Yoruba vigilantes? Why are local populations excluded from securing their own communities, while an armed ethnic group with an established record of violent expansionism is empowered, armed, and legitimised by the state? This is not community policing. It is demographic and security engineering.
A Pattern, Not an Incident
What happened in Kwara is not an isolated scandal. It fits a disturbing and well-documented pattern. In January 2024, Miyetti Allah leader Bello Bodejo announced the formation of an armed Fulani militia of 1,144 fighters, euphemistically labelled a “vigilante group.”
The launch ceremony took place in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital and had among its guests the Governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule, as a special guest.
Nasarawa State has long been accused by survivors, journalists, international monitors and even neighbouring state officials of hosting Fulani terrorist camps from which attacks against Plateau, Benue, Taraba, Southern Kaduna, and other Middle Belt communities are launched.
When Bodejo was eventually arrested and charged with terrorism, his confessional statement, reported by Punch newspaper in April 2024, contained an explosive allegation: he claimed that Governor Sule pressured him to form the militia group known as Kungiya Zaman Lafiya.
Bodejo was later released without trial. The alleged architect of his release? Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.
The 1,144 armed “vigilantes” subsequently disappeared into thin air. No disarmament. No accountability. No explanation.
From Appeasement to Empowerment
The Kwara arrests now place the Office of the National Security Adviser squarely at the centre of another scandal involving armed Fulani operatives embedded in state-sanctioned security frameworks.
If confirmed, this represents a catastrophic breach of counterterrorism doctrine. No serious state fighting terrorism would arm ethnic militias tied to insurgent violence. No professional security architecture outsources public safety to groups accused of mass atrocities. And no responsible National Security Adviser permits such an arrangement. Yet this is precisely what Nigeria appears to be doing, repeatedly.
This pattern lends overwhelming credence to growing national and international calls for Nuhu Ribadu’s immediate removal as National Security Adviser. National security cannot be entrusted to an individual who repeatedly champions peace deals, protection, or legitimacy for armed groups responsible for spreading terror among citizens.
The Matawalle Question
The crisis deepens further with renewed allegations surrounding Bello Matawalle, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Defence.
In recent weeks, Matawalle has been implicated by his former aide in allegations of sponsoring key bandit leaders in Zamfara State. These claims resurrect older, widely circulated videos in which notorious bandit leader Bello Turji openly stated that Matawalle, then governor of Zamfara, paid some bandits with public funds in the name of “peace.”
Turji is not a misunderstood local actor. He is a terror commander linked to the killing of hundreds, possibly thousands, of farmers across the North-West.
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Matawalle denies wrongdoing, arguing that payments and negotiations were part of a peace strategy. But peace bought with impunity, cash, and legitimacy for terrorists is not peace; it is state-funded terror management.
When combined with the Kwara revelations, the allegations against Matawalle reinforce a chilling conclusion: Nigeria’s defence and security leadership is populated by individuals whose policies consistently reward, empower, and normalise terrorism. This alone justifies Matawalle’s removal.
“Bombs Cannot Penetrate Forests”
Perhaps nothing illustrates the depth of rot more than the parting statement of Nigeria’s immediate past Defence Minister, Abubakar Badaru, who reportedly remarked during the week of his resignation that “bandits live in forests where bombs cannot penetrate.”
This is not merely false; it is professionally disqualifying. Modern militaries conduct forest warfare across the globe. Nigeria’s armed forces have successfully done so outside Nigeria.
The claim that bombs “cannot penetrate forests” is not a tactical assessment; it is an excuse, one that exposes a leadership class more interested in rationalising failure than confronting terror.
Why the World Is Responding
In recent days, the United States announced visa restrictions affecting Nigerians. Predictably, outrage followed. Many Nigerians consider the decision unfair or excessive. They are wrong.
The United States, like any rational state, has a duty to protect itself from countries where terrorism is being mainstreamed into governance structures. When armed ethnic militias tied to terror networks are armed by the state, embedded into official security operations, shielded from prosecution, and rewarded with political appointments, terrorism is no longer an aberration; it is policy-adjacent. Visa restrictions are not a punishment. They are self-defence for all responsible nations.
Recommendations
If Nigeria wishes to arrest its rapid descent into international isolation and internal collapse, urgent action is required:
- Nuhu Ribadu must resign or be removed as National Security Adviser. His continued tenure undermines confidence in Nigeria’s counterterrorism commitment and poses a grave risk to national cohesion.
- Bello Matawalle must be relieved of his defence portfolio pending an independent investigation into allegations of terrorist sponsorship and appeasement.
- Miyetti Allah-linked armed formations must be formally investigated for terrorism-related activities and barred from any security role.
- Security appointments must prioritise professional competence over ethnic, religious or political proximity. National security is too serious to be managed through sentiment.
- International partners must escalate targeted sanctions and visa restrictions against officials credibly linked to terror appeasement.
Conclusion
The arrest of armed Miyetti Allah operatives in Kwara State is not merely another scandal. It is a warning flare.
Nigeria now stands at a crossroad: continue mainstreaming terrorism through appeasement and ethnic favouritism, or reclaim the basic function of the state, protecting citizens without fear or favour.
The world is watching. And increasingly, it is acting. Whether Nigeria chooses reform or further collapse will determine not just its security future, but its standing among nations that still believe terrorism must be confronted, not accommodated.
STEVEN KEFAS is an investigative journalist, Senior Research Analyst at the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, and Publisher of Middle Belt Times. He has documented religious persecution, terrorism and forced displacement in Nigeria’s Middle Belt for over a decade.
