{"id":3502,"date":"2025-12-06T15:24:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T15:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jubaglobal.com\/?p=3502"},"modified":"2025-12-06T15:24:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T15:24:26","slug":"nigerias-security-crisis-worsens-defence-minister-steps-down-as-kidnappings-hit-new-highs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/nigerias-security-crisis-worsens-defence-minister-steps-down-as-kidnappings-hit-new-highs\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria&#8217;s Security Crisis Worsens: Defence Minister Steps Down as Kidnappings Hit New Highs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"720\" height=\"999\" src=\"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1977\/2025\/12\/1000391765.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3504\" style=\"width:731px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>By Juba Global News Network<\/strong><br><em>Abuja, December 5, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a development that&#8217;s sent shockwaves through Nigeria&#8217;s political circles, Defence Minister Mohammed Badaru Abubakar handed in his resignation on Wednesday evening, officially blaming &#8220;personal health reasons.&#8221; President Bola Tinubu didn\u2019t wait long to accept Badaru\u2019s resignation, quickly tapping his longtime confidant and former Zamfara governor, Bello Matawalle, to fill the role. The timing, though, isn\u2019t fooling many people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Badaru\u2019s departure lands smack in the middle of the country\u2019s most relentless wave of mass abductions. Just these past ten days:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>On December 1, 87 students snatched from a government secondary school in Kaduna State<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>December 3 saw 14 passengers abducted off a luxury bus on the Abuja-Kaduna highway<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Between December 4\u20135, 41 farmers and travelers were kidnapped in separate incidents in Katsina and Sokoto<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, more than 1,400 Nigerians are being held for ransom in the northwest and north-central regions alone\u2014the highest tally the Armed Conflict Location &amp; Event Data Project (ACLED) has ever recorded. And honestly? That number\u2019s likely an understatement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Minister Cornered<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Badaru, a typically reserved businessman-turned-politician from Jigawa State, has spent much of 2025 bouncing between Abuja, the United Nations General Assembly, and military command outposts in Maiduguri, Sokoto, and Birnin Gwari. But confidence in his leadership? It\u2019s been slipping for months. Back in September, the House of Representatives dragged him in for questioning after bandits overran a military base in Zurmi, Zamfara, killing 13 soldiers. Then in October, the Senate delivered a no-confidence vote in the aftermath of 150 schoolchildren being abducted in Niger State\u2014an ordeal that ended only after what\u2019s rumored to be a \u20a61 billion ransom payout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Behind closed doors, governors from the hardest-hit states haven\u2019t been shy about demanding Badaru\u2019s ouster. A leaked memo from the Nigeria Governors\u2019 Forum dated November 18 didn\u2019t mince words, calling the security setup \u201ccompletely broken\u201d and accusing the Ministry of Defence of \u201cstrategic inertia.\u201d Insiders at the Presidential Villa say President Tinubu actually asked Badaru to step aside last week, but the minister held out, hoping for some dramatic turnaround from ongoing operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Old Problem\u2019s New Face<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Bello Matawalle, stepping in as the new minister, isn\u2019t exactly a stranger to this crisis. During his stint as Zamfara governor (2019\u20132023), he made headlines with his controversial approach: negotiating with bandit leaders, offering amnesty, and even rolling out cash-for-arms deals that, critics argue, only empowered criminal gangs. In fact, SBM Intelligence reports kidnappings in Zamfara shot up by 300% while Matawalle was in charge. Still, his appointment is being painted as bringing \u201clocal knowledge\u201d and renewed \u201cpolitical will\u201d to a fight the regular military seems to be losing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Security experts? They\u2019re split. \u201cMatawalle knows the ground, knows the players,\u201d says Dr. Murtala Rufa\u2019i of Usmanu Danfodiyo University. \u201cBut he also made it seem normal for bandits to get talked to instead of defeated.\u201d Others worry his return basically admits that big chunks of rural Nigeria have turned into permanent no-go zones, ruled by the logic of ransom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Nation Held Hostage<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The statistics are staggering. Since President Tinubu took office in May 2023, at least 3,620 civilians have been swept up in mass kidnappings (each incident involving 10 or more people), according to figures gathered by Beacon Security Consulting. In 2025 alone, ransom payments are conservatively pegged at \u20a612 billion ($7.8 million). For many families, \u201ckidnap savings\u201d have become a regular budget item\u2014just like setting aside money for school fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The criminal tactics have become bolder. Bandits, sometimes moving in groups of up to 300, now wield RPGs and anti-aircraft guns strapped to pickup trucks. They storm military checkpoints, record their attacks to spread on social media, and vanish into the dense Kamuku, Kuyambana, and Rugu forests that sprawl across six states. The Nigerian Air Force claims airstrikes have killed \u201chundreds,\u201d but ground forces rarely stick around long enough to stop the bandits from coming back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps most troubling is the dramatic erosion of public trust. In a November 2025 NOI Polls survey, 78% of people in the northwest said they\u2019d rather pay a ransom than report a kidnapping to the authorities. Some vigilante groups\u2014sometimes backed by state governments\u2014have started executing captured bandits on camera, chipping away even more at the government\u2019s control over violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What\u2019s Next?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Matawalle\u2019s opening remarks after being sworn in didn\u2019t pull any punches: \u201cWe\u2019ll use both kinetic and non-kinetic means. Some of these boys, you can still talk sense into them.\u201d He\u2019s pledged to reopen dialogue that Badaru had shut down and to deploy another 20,000 \u201cspecial agro-rangers\u201d to try to safeguard farming communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the obstacles? They\u2019re huge. Security funding remains a black box\u2014the 2025 defence budget is \u20a64.9 trillion ($3.2 billion), the biggest in Nigeria\u2019s history, but frontline soldiers still complain about not getting paid or having to make do with outdated equipment. Cooperation between the military, police, and Department of State Services is, frankly, a mess. And\u2014maybe most worrying\u2014nobody seems willing to go after the connections between certain northern elites and the bandit kingpins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While families in Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, and elsewhere agonize, waiting for word about kidnapped loved ones, one thing\u2019s obvious: swapping out a single minister\u2014however high-profile\u2014won\u2019t undo ten years of government retreat. To be blunt, Nigeria isn\u2019t just struggling to keep its citizens safe. In huge stretches of the northwest and north-central, the state has, for all intents and purposes, stopped existing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For parents waiting outside empty schools and villagers camping out in their fields to protect the harvest, the real question isn\u2019t who\u2019s running the Defence Ministry anymore. It\u2019s whether Nigeria actually has the means\u2014or maybe even the desire\u2014to reclaim its land from men with guns and motorbikes. And for now, that answer hangs out there, as scary and uncertain as ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Juba Global News NetworkAbuja, December 5, 2025 In a development that&#8217;s sent shockwaves through&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[786,830,643,1,808],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-breaking-news","category-more-articles","category-news","category-nigeria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3505,"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502\/revisions\/3505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}