Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Call on Tinubu to Address Nigeria’s Security Failures

A coalition of regional leaders from Southern Nigeria and the Middle Belt has issued a strong condemnation of the Nigerian Federal Government’s handling of the country’s security crises. The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) has urged President Bola Tinubu to take urgent and effective measures to protect Nigerians from ongoing violence.

The group’s communique, made public on Thursday in Akure, Ondo State, was jointly signed by Oba Oladipo Olaitan (Afenifere), Dr. Bitrus Pogu (Middle Belt Forum), Senator John Azuta-Mbata (Ohanaeze Ndigbo), and Ambassador Godknows Igali (PANDEF). It highlighted the government’s failure to secure lives and properties, especially in Benue State, where criminal herdsmen continue to perpetrate deadly attacks.

“The Federal Government of Nigeria and particularly the National Assembly must now accept their failure to provide the most fundamental security of life and property across the country whilst we witness the impunity of Fulani terrorists and their foreign collaborators wrecking genocidal attacks on indigenous communities across the nation and particularly in the Middle Belt region as happening currently in Benue State,” the statement said.

The forum called on the President and lawmakers to fulfill their constitutional duties by protecting Nigerians. It proposed that the federation grant greater autonomy to states, enabling each to maintain its own police command and deploy officers within their states of origin.

The group also opposed the establishment of National Forest Guards as a federal security force, insisting that security formations outside the military, police, civil defence, and State Security Services should be under state control, given that land and forests are constitutionally the prerogative of states.

Criticizing the military’s deployment in troubled areas as a “fire-brigade” approach, the forum said this strategy is ineffective and diverts the military from its primary role of defending Nigeria’s territorial integrity.

Until Nigeria achieves true federalism, the SMBLF urged states to take immediate steps to secure their communities, recommending the creation of well-armed local security networks similar to the Amotekun South West Security Network.

The statement concluded: “These proposals should be the irreducible minimum as the alternative to calling out the people to take their destinies in their hands and procure instruments of self-defence from wherever possible if this carnage persists.”

The forum’s communique reflects deep concern over Nigeria’s security challenges and calls for urgent reforms to prevent further deterioration.