Shu’aibu Usman Leman
The security landscape across Nigeria’s North West and North Central regions continues to deteriorate at an alarming pace. The spread and increasing audacity of the armed group known as Lakurawa has cast a deep shadow over daily life, leaving millions trapped in fear and uncertainty.
Communities that once enjoyed a fragile calm now live under a suffocating atmosphere of anxiety. This grim picture is brought into sharp relief in an investigative report by Malik Samuel, published in The Guardian on 24 November 2025, which documents how entire settlements have been forced into the humiliating routine of negotiating their own survival under the weight of Lakurawa’s authority.
Samuel’s extensive reporting establishes one fact with clarity. The rise of Lakurawa is neither abrupt nor unexpected. Rather, it is the tragic culmination of years of silent expansion, aided by complex local alliances and sustained by a corrosive culture of political complacency.
Nigeria is now reaping the bitter harvest of ignored intelligence and unattended early warnings. Lakurawa stands today as a chilling reminder of how political actors, whether through deliberate choices or negligent miscalculations, have effectively imported terror into their own communities.
The group’s arrival from Mali between 2016 and 2017 marked the beginning of a slow but steady entrenchment.
Local leaders in the affected region, often under the illusion of community protection or political advantage, facilitated their settlement.
What may have begun as an ill-conceived attempt at local self-defense has now evolved into a sophisticated insurgent structure.
According to Samuel, Lakurawa has deeply embedded itself both socially and militarily.
The group is consolidating power through fear, coercion, and an increasingly rigid strand of religious extremism. The long-standing practice of arming non state actors for political or communal purposes has once again backfired. Communities that once viewed Lakurawa as partners in security now live under an imposed order defined by violence and indoctrination.
Nigeria’s systemic defence weaknesses are well known. They include poor intelligence coordination, politicised appointments, porous borders, and severe logistical deficits. Samuel’s account reveals how these structural gaps created fertile ground for Lakurawa to flourish, enabling the group to erect a parallel authority.
In several of the communities he visited, it was Lakurawa fighters, not state officials, who determined who was safe, who was guilty, and what was permissible. This reality is a stark sign of a state steadily losing control to an assertive shadow authority.
History has shown this pattern repeatedly. From the Janjaweed in Sudan to Boko Haram in Nigeria, whenever the State cedes space to non state actors, those actors return stronger, more violent, and significantly harder to dislodge
Cattle rustling, mass kidnappings, and punitive raids have become routine in affected areas. Samuel documents communities that now pay tribute to Lakurawa in exchange for minimal safety.
This echoes the early years of Boko Haram, when official responses dangerously underestimated the threat. It is against this backdrop that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s nomination of General Christopher Musa as Minister of Defence must be viewed not as a routine appointment but as a crucial national security decision.
Samuel’s findings show that Lakurawa is spreading largely through the failures of governance. General Musa, a decorated former Chief of Defence Staff, brings extensive battlefield experience from Operation Hadin Kai and joint operations in the Lake Chad region. These experiences will be vital in confronting the unfolding crisis. Yet, his new role demands not just military expertise but political courage.
He must lead a comprehensive reform of a defence sector burdened by inertia and political interference. Most importantly, he must recognise Lakurawa not as mere bandits but as an emerging proto insurgency.
The Federal High Court in Abuja has already proscribed the group, acknowledging its danger and granting the state legal room for decisive action.
Samuel notes that Lakurawa has begun enforcing behavioural codes, restricting movement, and destroying what it labels unholy items.
These are not random acts. They are calculated steps toward supplanting the authority of the Nigerian State with an oppressive ideological rule. The consequences are mounting.
Farmlands lie abandoned, residents are displaced, and many communities remain paralysed by fear. Schools are closed in several districts where government presence has been absent for years.
With at least nineteen local government areas now economically or socially crippled, General Musa must approach counter insurgency as more than military action. It must involve the rapid restoration of governance and essential public services.
Global experiences offer valuable lessons. Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Iraq demonstrate that defeating entrenched insurgencies requires unified command, intelligence driven operations, and the re establishment of effective civil administration. These should form the foundation of General Musa’s approach.
Accountability must also be non-negotiable. Samuel’s report traces the role of local level corruption and political compromises in enabling Lakurawa’s rise. A Defence Minister tasked with reform cannot tolerate such enabling environments.
The urgency could not be clearer. Samuel’s report is not a mere investigation.
It is an alarm. Boko Haram followed a similar trajectory,underestimated at the outset before becoming one of the world’s deadliest insurgencies. Nigeria cannot afford to repeat that mistake.
The window for decisive action is shrinking. Under its new Defence Minister, the country must reject complacency and respond with determined urgency.
Leman is a former National Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ)
