Tinubu at 2026 Security Summit: Why Military Force Alone Won’t Fix North Central Insecurity
MAKURDI, Nigeria — President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has declared that military action alone cannot deliver lasting peace to Nigeria’s North Central region, calling for a shift toward community-led security and economic development.
Speaking as the Special Guest of Honour at the 2026 North Central Regional Security Summit in Makurdi, Benue State, on Monday, the President emphasized that the federal government is moving away from top-down security strategies. He stated that the administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda is built on the conviction that national stability must be constructed from the community level upward, rather than solely from the nation’s capital.
The summit, themed “Collaborative Approaches to Strengthening Security and Regional Stability,” is the second in a series of regional engagements spearheaded by the Ministry of Defence, following an earlier session in the South East.
President Tinubu commended the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa (Retired), for sustaining the initiative. He noted that the choice of Benue State—nationally celebrated as the “Food Basket of the Nation”—served as a fitting yet urgent backdrop for critical dialogues regarding regional stability, agricultural protection, and economic survival.
The President insisted that inter-agency friction must stop, warning that “criminality does not respect state boundaries” and that historic responses have been “too often slowed by rivalry, duplication, and the withholding of information.”
Addressing the machinery of national security, Tinubu highlighted deliberate federal investments in the Armed Forces, Nigeria Police Force, and intelligence services. Through the implementation of the DICON Act, the federal government is rebuilding its indigenous defence industry so Nigeria can “produce more of what it needs to defend itself.”
While praising troops for neutralizing terrorist commanders and freeing captives, Tinubu maintained a blunt stance on the limitations of combat, stating, “Military action alone will not deliver lasting peace to the North Central. Force can suppress violence; it cannot resolve the grievances that produce it.”
The President identified competition over land and water, climate change, desertification, and weak local dispute resolution mechanisms as the foundational drivers where violence takes root. He issued a stark warning to the stakeholders in attendance: “If we address only the symptom and never the cause, we will be back in this hall in ten years having the same conversation.”
To prevent this, he outlined a dual-track strategy combining kinetic military operations with targeted developmental programs, including a transition from traditional open grazing to modern, settled livestock production managed by the Ministry of Livestock Development.
In addition to agricultural reforms, the President spotlighted the Ministry of Defence’s “Reclaiming the Ungoverned Space for Economic Benefits Programme,” which leverages the experience of retired military personnel to secure and revitalize vulnerable communities. Tinubu paired these systemic changes with a direct challenge to traditional rulers and religious leaders, reminding them that they hold “an authority that no uniform confers.” He implored them to be the first line of early warning and to remain “unflinching in rejecting inflammatory rhetoric, whether it comes from the pulpit, the palace or the podium.”
The President urged women, youth, and communities to stop shielding criminals out of kinship or sentiment. He praised women as the “most effective peacebuilders” and promised young people that the administration is committed to expanding economic opportunities to “make a rifle a far less attractive prospect than a livelihood.”
