Northern Nigeria Governors Forum Chairman and Gombe State Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya has inaugurated the Board of Trustees of the Northern Nigeria Security Trust Fund, formally launching a regional financing mechanism the 19 Northern governors established to mobilise resources and strengthen coordinated security efforts across the region.
The board, unveiled during a Northern Governors Forum meeting in Kaduna, is co chaired by former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Mahmoud Yayale Ahmed and former Chief of Defence Staff General Martin Luther Agwai, and includes an array of retired military officers, senior police officers, security experts and technocrats drawn from all 19 Northern states, among them former Chief of Army Staff Umar Farouk Yahaya, former Inspector General of Police Usman Alkali Baba, former Senator and Air Vice Marshal Napoleon Bali, former SGF Boss Mustapha, Professor Usman Tar, and several retired senior police officers.
Yahaya said the Trust Fund emerged from Northern governors’ collective resolve to confront terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and other criminality threatening peace and development across the region, arguing that while national security remains a federal constitutional responsibility, the scale and complexity of the North’s security challenges demand stronger regional collaboration to support federal agencies through intelligence gathering, resource mobilisation and coordinated intervention. He described the fund as a practical mechanism meant to complement, not replace, federal security efforts, and charged the newly inaugurated board to keep it transparent, accountable and results oriented, warning that it must not become just another bureaucratic institution but a credible platform capable of delivering measurable improvements in security coordination. Our people are not looking for another institution, he said, they are looking for action, protection, stability and hope, adding that the fund’s success will ultimately be judged by how much it improves intelligence sharing, rapid response and overall public safety. Yahaya also urged fellow governors to promptly fulfil the Forum’s earlier resolution requiring each Northern state and its local governments to contribute N1 billion monthly for twelve months to guarantee sustainable funding for the initiative.
