My Geography teacher in secondary school, Mr Ikoro, candidly dropped a wise saying that has stuck for over 50 years (I have quoted it here perhaps more than once): “Every charitable or uncharitable attitude is a boomerang”. People now frequently use the Hindu Sanskrit word: “karma” to clothe the principle that a person’s action – good or bad – has consequences that affect their life, sooner or later.
Weeks ago, President Bola Tinubu, in obvious sobre reflection, was caught on video saying: “My enemies want to use insecurity in the country to get rid of me. But I am a stubborn politician who refuses to go, and I will campaign for my second term”. I don’t really know if he was fishing for sympathy from Nigerians. If you know how the insecurity blew out of proportion from its initial North East base, you will only tell the Jagaban that the hand his political associates used to prepare a poisoned brew for former President Goodluck Jonathan has now touched the lips of the two All Progressives Congress (APC) presidents, Muhammadu Buhari and his successor, Bola Tinubu.
During his 70th birthday in 2019, a former Chairman of the APC, Abubakar Kawu Baraje, was widely quoted as alleging that some Northern leaders in his party had hired and camped Fulani gunmen from Sahel nations in Zamfara forests to wage war against the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan if Buhari was “rigged out” in the 2015 presidential election. He later claimed he was misreported. As it turned out, despite the ugly warts of the 2015 presidential election, Jonathan peacefully conceded to Buhari and went home.
Jonathan meant business when he said he was not a “Pharaoh, emperor or general”. Many have applauded him for giving peace a chance in a circumstance where others would have cracked down on opponents and their mercenaries. But on second thoughts, what if Jonathan had proactively swooped on the militants being assembled in Zamfara, wiped them out and put all their sponsors on trial? Our constitution mandated him to do so. Perhaps, he would have saved the country the agony we are in right now. Jonathan chickened out of the responsibility of his office and bowed to evil; and here we are today! Would you try that with leaders like General Ibrahim Babangida, Gen. Sani Abacha or even Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo? Would you attempt it with a putative President Nyesom Wike?
When Buhari assumed power, he allowed the “bandits”, who were basically his ethnic kinsmen, to operate between Zamfara and Niger States, rustling cattle instead of sending them home. Indeed, he later threw the borders open and actively imported armed foreign Fulani to join their Nigerian brethren for distribution to forests all over Nigeria as part of his Islamisation and Fulanisation agenda. When Tinubu came to power three years ago, he vowed to follow the footsteps of Buhari.
Most Nigerians thought he was just rapping to tide over the expiring Buhari momentum. But, under his watch, the Fulani armed menace has morphed into a pandemic. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recently reported that over 30,000 armed Fulani militants are operating all over Nigeria. Under Tinubu, we are no longer just talking about the Boko Haram/ISWAP, Fulani herdsmen killer gangs and coteries of bandits which he inherited from Buhari. Additional groups of core jihadists known as Lakurawa and Mahmuda, have descended on Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa and now Oyo communities.
For the first time ever, a very deadly school abduction has taken place in Southern Nigeria. The terrorists signed their showpiece jihadist signature by beheading an abducted maths teacher, Michael Oyedokun, on live video! They raided nursery, primary and secondary schools and abducted 39 pupils and seven teachers in Orire LGA of Oyo State. They have been in captivity for over two weeks. Also, some Oyo-based terrorists have written Agbekoya hunters in Odeda LGA of Ogun State, that they would soon carry out a school abduction in their domain. It is a matter of time before they enter Lagos.
Meanwhile, as teachers went on strike in some South West states this week, reports came that Fulani terrorists struck on Sunday, 31st May 2026, at Awgu Junction in Enugu State, randomly slaughtering five people and displaying their bodies on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway. Also, shootings and abduction of passengers were reported around the Nunya/Okigwe axis of the Expressway, disrupting the movement of hundreds of travellers. The way this thing is going, it is only a matter of time before school abduction is exported into the South East and South-South.
Tinubu’s lamentation that his “enemies” are using insecurity to boot him out of power, beyond the karmic dimension of it, begs the question: why are his “enemies” apparently winning? Even if it is true that Fulani terrorists number over 30,000, they are still far below the 230,000-strong Nigerian Army, 371,000-man Nigerian Police, 15,000-20,000 men of the Nigerian Navy and 18,000-staff Nigerian Air Force, plus the synergies of the Directorate of State Security Service (DSS), Civil Defence and others. They enjoy the full compliments of State authority and monopoly of power which are under Tinubu’s command.
Apart from these, Tinubu, just like Buhari, appointed his ethnic kinsmen to head the Army, Police, DSS and their commanding heights, including all the federation’s juicy revenue offices – NNPLC, CBN, Federal Ministry of Finance, Customs and others. With these overwhelming advantages, where does this weakness against the ragtag jihadist terrorist come from? Two schools of thought are at play here. One says Tinubu, like Buhari, doesn’t have it and can never solve it. The other says it as Gen. T. Y. Danjuma did: “They are colluding”. Or both. It’s probably a party agenda, as alleged. It’s up to Nigerians what they do about it in 2027.
