Nigeria stands at a precipice as 30,000 armed Fulani militants, according to a May 2026 US Commission on International Religious Freedom (UCIRF) report, operate across our nation with terrifying impunity, systematically overwhelming our territorial integrity through calculated violence, mass abductions for ransom and land-grabbing. This is in addition to Boko Haram/ISWAP militants who are active at several flashpoints in the North.
The nightmare deepens in Plateau and Benue States, where these terrorists now control substantial territories, establishing what Catholic priests describe as “an Islamic state project” born from Usman dan Fodio’s 1804 conquest that established the Sokoto Caliphate across northern Nigeria. This is not merely farmer-herder conflict as it is officially depicted but a deliberate, strategic campaign of demographic re-engineering, with militants targeting Christians as their primary victims in the Middle Belt but also sweeping through Muslim communities throughout the North. The Nigerian state has failed catastrophically, whether through commission or omission, allowing these jihadist elements to metastasise from localised raiders into occupation forces controlling vast territories. The allegations of collusion between some security elements and the jihadist militias, recently made by the US panel, now appear chillingly validated by the unhindered spread of the militant menace.
How do ragtag bandit groups of between 10 to 1,000 fighters operate across multiple states without intelligence agencies knowing? This question screams of deep complicity by highly-placed politicians and rogue elements in our armed and security forces who actively collude with these terrorists (as openly admitted by senior military officials) rather than the Nigerian people they swore to protect. The dangers facing Nigerians are apocalyptic: our farms lie abandoned, our children cannot attend school safely, our markets have become killing zones, and millions are starving in overcrowded refugee camps with unsanitary conditions. The Genocide Watch has placed Nigeria at Stage 9: Extermination and Stage 10: Denial.
We demand immediate action. The Federal Government must deploy well-equipped, vetted military task forces with digital intelligence-led operations targeting militant strongholds, removing compromised officers and prosecuting collaborators. Let us strengthen international partnerships with friendly foreign powers like the United States, which since October 2025 has shown willingness to help protect vulnerable indigenous populations. We must also work with Sahel countries to re-establish multinational joint military coalitions to tackle cross-border jihadists. We must also end open grazing and resettle nomadic pastoralists in ranches, adopting the business model that other livestock economies have used to avert crises, provided that no landowner is forced to give up their land or accommodate armed and dangerous alien marauders. The Federal Government has constitutional mandate to defend Nigeria’s territorial integrity and protect every citizen regardless of faith or ethnicity.
Nigerians must vote out leaders who cannot protect them in the impending general elections.
