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Across Nigeria in mid-2026, a shift is occurring that is being felt more than formally acknowledged: the security crisis that was for years geographically confined to the far north is now pressing against the borders of the cities and the south.

In Berger, on the edge of Lagos, traders close early.

In Abuja, an April 2025 Customs Service memo warned of terrorist (ISWAP and Boko Haram) infiltration of the Federal Capital Territory, with planned attacks on the international airport and a correctional facility.

In Kwara State, which the Institute for Security Studies has identified as a geographical bridge between the insecure north and the relatively stable southwest, kidnapping incidents now employ tactics previously associated exclusively with Zamfara and Katsina.

The storm has reached the gate even though it has not yet been formally named. The unending tales of different colours of kidnap with astronomical ransom, negotiation, victim release/corpse discovery have recently become more consistent rather than isolated. The banditry story follows a different horrific cycle.

The statistics demand more than naming. In the first half of 2025 alone, at least 2,266 people were killed by bandits and insurgents, already exceeding the total for all of 2024 (2,194), according to the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. In 2024, 2,452 people were kidnapped, a 31 per cent increase over the 1,878 recorded in 2023, according to Human Rights Watch.

Between 2023 and May 2025, at least 10,217 people were killed by armed groups in northern Nigeria. SBM Intelligence recorded 2,938 abductions, a figure over 60 per cent of national totals, in the northwest region alone between July 2024 and June 2025.

In November 2025, at least 402 people, predominantly schoolchildren, were kidnapped across four north-central states in a single month. According to Global Rights Nigeria, in the first quarter of 2026, tracking data reveals that at least 2,063 people and 1,048 people were killed and abducted respectively across Nigeria with rural banditry remaining the main driver of violent incidents, accounting for at least 739 distinct deaths.

With 31.8 million already classified as food insecure at the end of 2024, the FAO projected that 34.7 million Nigerians face acute food insecurity (at least Crisis Phase 3) by mid-2026.

Against this backdrop sits a fiscal paradox that is not merely embarrassing but structurally enabling. The federal government’s 2025 security and defence budget aggregates to N6.57 trillion (approximately $4.78 billion), according to BudgIT’s breakdown of appropriations.

Beyond the federal allocation, Nigeria’s 36 state governors collectively receive what Transparency International estimates at over $600 million annually in unaudited, unaccountable “security votes.” In Osun State alone, the governor receives N600 million ($437,000) per month in security votes translating into N28.8 billion ($20.96 million) over a four-year term.

In addition, states collectively received N5.81 trillion ($4.23 billion) from the Federation Account in 2024 alone, following the post-subsidy-removal FAAC surge. In June 2025, SERAP issued Freedom of Information requests to all 36 governors demanding disclosure of security vote expenditures since May 2023.

The silence was comprehensive. The EFCC Chairman stated publicly in late 2025 that security votes had become “slush funds,” with billions “siphoned abroad monthly.” In the Obiano case in Anambra, the EFCC documented over N4 billion in allegedly diverted security votes from the dedicated account.

The institutional dimension compounds the crisis. The Nigeria Police Force has approximately 371,800 officers for a population of about 236.7 million. This is far below the UN-recommended ratio of one per 400 citizens, which would require at least 591,750 officers. More damaging than the headline shortfall are the moral decay, abashed institutional and official corruption and the deployment structure.

On the headline shortfall of deployment structure, according to a European Union report in November 2025, over 100,000 police officers, just below one-thirds of the entire force, are assigned to protecting politicians and VIPs rather than patrolling communities or responding to emergencies.

President Tinubu’s directive is underway to correct this anomaly but is stalled by reality. While the government executed high-profile crackdowns and phased pullbacks, systemic evasion by Nigeria’s political and corporate elites remains highly visible.

The Inspector General of Police has publicly stated that an additional 190,000 personnel are needed. New recruitment is underway, including a plan for 30,000 new constables in 2026 but recruitment without deployment reform does not solve the crisis. Nigeria’s military, meanwhile, is constitutionally empowered under Section 217(2)(c) of the 1999 Constitution to assist civil authorities in maintaining order and is already deployed domestically through multiple operational designations.

The question is not whether it should be involved but why joint urban military-police operations remain absent from the southern states now facing documented spillovers.

The economic consequences are no longer projections. Foreign direct investment fell by 70 per cent quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of 2025, dropping to $126.29 million from $421.88 million in Q4 2024, according to the Serrari Group.

The World Bank reported FDI at just 0.6 per cent of GDP in 2024. NBS records that multinationals such as Shell, GlaxoSmithKline, Procter and Gamble, Unilever Nigeria, and Sanofi have all exited or curtailed operations. In agriculture, highlighting a critical bottleneck, ActionAid Nigeria estimated post-harvest losses at N3.5 trillion ($2.55 billion) annually, approximately half of total food production, with insecurity a primary driver.