Vice President Kashim Shettima has delivered a stark warning that shadowy agents of chaos and deliberate profiteers of conflict were actively and systematically working in the shadows to sabotage the Tinubu administration’s peace-building efforts across Nigeria, as state governors, federal government officials, and private sector leaders converged on Abuja for a high-profile security summit and fundraising event at which the Kogi State government sought to raise N500 billion for a comprehensive security infrastructure programme.
Shettima, represented at the Kogi State Security Summit and Fundraising by the Minister of State for Regional Development, Uba Maigari Ahmadu, warned with unmistakable urgency that Nigeria could not afford the luxury of complacency in the face of security threats that were continuously evolving in their sophistication, geographic reach, and operational capacity. He described proactive and well-resourced security planning as a non-negotiable national obligation rather than an optional investment.
“A serious nation does not wait for danger to mature before it begins to think. It reads the weather before the storm and studies the fault lines before they crack. We cannot retreat into complacency because the agents of chaos and profiteers of conflict are always lurking in the shadows, determined to sabotage every effort to build peace and restore order,” he said.
He noted that Nigeria’s security challenges had been compounded over many years by a combination of deliberate policy neglect, economic pressures that left large populations without viable livelihoods, communal tensions that had been allowed to fester without systematic resolution, and criminal opportunism that exploited ungoverned spaces and weak institutional responses. He warned that the individuals and networks who actively benefited from instability remained highly motivated and well-resourced in their determination to frustrate every government effort to restore order and normalcy.
Kogi Governor Usman Ododo used his address to take a hardline and unequivocal public stance on criminality, declaring to a large audience that his administration would not negotiate with criminals under any circumstances regardless of the political or social pressures that might be brought to bear. He described Kogi’s unique and strategically sensitive position as a geographical gateway connecting Nigeria’s northern and southern regions as a factor that made proactive, well-funded, and continuously improving security infrastructure not just desirable but an absolute strategic necessity for the state and for the country.
He said his administration had already made significant investments in modern security infrastructure, including advanced surveillance systems, communication equipment, and operational support for security agencies, but emphasised that government resources alone were insufficient to meet the scale of the challenge, which was why the public-private partnership model embodied in the Security Trust Fund was essential.
Borno Governor Babagana Zulum, drawing on hard lessons learned through a decade of confronting one of the world’s most active and destructive insurgencies, argued with considerable authority that sustainable security could not be achieved through military pressure alone but required a sustained and serious commitment to addressing the underlying socioeconomic conditions that made populations vulnerable to recruitment by criminal and extremist organisations. He disclosed that Borno State had succeeded in reducing its security challenges by more than 90 percent through a carefully designed and consistently executed combination of military operations and targeted interventions in employment creation, agricultural restoration, education provision, and infrastructure development in affected communities.
The summit generated substantial and widely publicised financial commitments from prominent participants. Geregu Power Chairman Senator Abdulaziz Yari, serving as chief launcher, donated N500 million in cash and pledged 10 operational vehicles and 20 drones to strengthen security operations. The Dangote Group donated N250 million and committed additional logistical support to be determined in consultation with state security authorities. Seven state governors present or represented at the event each pledged N100 million, while numerous corporate organisations with operations in Kogi State made additional commitments that collectively ran into billions of naira, bringing the total raised significantly closer to the N500 billion target.
