During the recent 2026 Holy week, the police clandestinely circulated information that terrorists from Nigeria had infiltrated the city of Maradi, Niger Republic, where I work as a missionary. Maradi sits a mere 10 km away from one of the border villages in Nigeria where Boko Haram holds sway. The atmosphere immediately became tense. The air was filled with rumours and whispers of the new bad guys in town. Authorities soon confirmed that all the terrorists had been arrested through intelligence sharing between the secret police and the people. It was said that the police swooped on the armed terrorists, arresting them in their various hideouts before they could coordinate and carry out an attack.
Later, I read how Niger Republic authorities deported 800 undocumented Nigerians. The deportees were received by Nigerian authorities at Magama-Jibia, along the Niger/Nigeria border, towards Katsina.
This was part of a crackdown by Nigerien immigration services following two separate terrorist attacks on Niamey and Tahoua Airport, with the latter blamed by analysts on ISWAP in the wider Sahel or on Al-Qaeda linked JNIM group.
At the Easter Vigil Mass that followed Holy Week, our voices rose to the chant of beautiful songs under the watchful eyes of heavily armed soldiers who surrounded the church in what I would describe as faith meeting reason and common sense.
The decision of the Nigerien state to send armed soldiers to guard the churches was not just an emergency necessitated by the panic of the moment. It is a ritual I have witnessed in my five years here as a missionary. Every Christmas, Easter and at every other major celebration like ordination, the police are deployed to churches to deter terrorist attacks.
Like their Nigerien counterparts, Nigerian authorities received intelligence that Churches may be attacked at Easter, yet no effort was made to stop the bloodbath. What we see are terrorists making good their promises and a government sitting back, either unconcerned and cowed.
The Nigerian military later confirmed that 26 people were killed in separate Easter weekend attacks. This was a result of attacks across villages in Benue and Kaduna states, as well as the Palm Sunday attack on the Christian community of Ungwan Rukuba in Jos which claimed nearly 30 lives.
In 2023 alone, Nigeria spent about $3.2 billion on military procurements, dwarfing other West African neighbours: Ghana ($0.3 – 0.4 billion), Senegal ( $0.4 – 0.5 billion), Mali ($0.9 billion) Burkina Faso ($1.0 billion), Niger ($0.3 – 0.4), and Côte d’Ivoire ($0.7B).
Despite being a military heavyweight with the largest defense budget in sub-Sahara Africa, smaller countries seem to be handling insecurity better with their tiny budgets than Nigeria.
The security woe in Nigeria is the consequence of the mixture of bitter politics, corruption, lack of patriotism, sabotage, tribalism, ethnicity and religion. Some of the terrorists menacing our country today were invited by Nigerians who harboured and nurtured them because they share the same tribe and religion.
The dreaded Lakurawa terrorists first came to Nigeria, invited by locals as a vigilante group, only to transition into a fundamentalist Islamic militant group terrorising the same people they came to protect. Many fighters and top leaders of Boko Haram came from Niger. Yet in their home country, they are hardly given any latitude to operate, except for sporadic attacks in border towns like Diffa, often (allegedly) carried out from the Nigerian side.
The APC has been accused of importing mercenaries from the Sahel in 2015 to help Buhari win election (ThisDay Live, Feb 1, 2019). Testimonies from late Obadiah Mailafia, a key Northern stakeholder, confirms that.
In a viral Facebook post on June 20, 2020, a House of Representative Member, Gudaji Kazaure, claimed that Boko Haram could have infiltrated the Nigerian Military high command.
The APC seems to be a signatory to the current insecurity situation ravaging Nigeria. Bello Matawale, the current Minister of State for Defence, has been severally accused of pursuing a policy that empowered and legitimized bandits when he was Governor of Zamfara State. So far, President Bola Tinubu has paid deaf ears to these allegations.
Added to this is terror-inspired violence and displacement of whole villages and towns, linked to mining interest by syndicates made up of politicians, armed militias and Chinese companies.
The present spate of insecurity should trouble every Nigerian. The President seems unable to act because those enabling insecurity are his political allies whom he needs desperately to win a second term. Little wonder we hear army chiefs and security hawks calling Islamic fundamentalists, terrorists and bandits “our sons and brothers.”
These are not slips of the tongue. They are deep political statements. While Nigeria flows in a river of blood, the Commander-in-Chief looks the other way. Political appointments go to those willing to overlook insecurity. It is also tied to return tickets for governors and senators.
You don’t need to go far to imagine why governors who defect to APC or who are strongly linked to them suddenly back track when it comes to insecurity. Simply put, APC is a shield under which insecurity grows from the stump of tribe and religion, watered by powerful men in the corridors of power sympathetic to terrorist causes, and protected by the long arms of politicians. The sponsors make millions of dollars daily from rare earth minerals like Lithium at the expense of Nigerian lives and property.
Nigeria’s insecurity is thus not an accident. It is the consequence of lack of patriotism, accountability, responsibility and poor choices. If we want a new Nigeria, we must be ready to make sacrifices by installing a government that has the will, sincerity and commitment to confront these monsters.
If poorer countries like Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali could confront terrorists with courage and unity of purpose, Nigeria the giant of Africa can do better. May God heal our country from this needless bloodbath.
Augustine Ikenna Anwuchie is a Nigerian missionary priest based in Niger Republic.
