By Kunle James Dukiya

The recent decision of the Northern States Governors’ Forum to establish a Northern Nigeria Security Trust Fund is a welcome acknowledgement that insecurity has become one of the greatest threats to the peace, stability, and prosperity of the region. The appointment of respected retired military officers, former police chiefs, and seasoned public servants to oversee the initiative reflects the seriousness with which the governors view the challenge.

The initiative deserves commendation. It demonstrates an appreciation that the magnitude of the crisis requires regional cooperation and collective responsibility. Yet, it also presents an opportunity to ask a more fundamental question: is insecurity in Northern Nigeria primarily a security problem, or is it the manifestation of a deeper crisis of leadership, governance, politics, and development?

I respectfully submit that while a Security Trust Fund may strengthen coordination and provide additional support for security operations, Northern Nigeria needs a Northern Nigeria Development Trust Fund even more urgently.

This is not an argument against security. Security is indispensable. Indeed, the framers of the 1999 Constitution in Section 14(2)(b) put security first, ahead of even welfare, as the primary purpose of government. By government, it needs be quickly added, is meant not only the federal, but state and local governments too.

Without security, farmers cannot cultivate their fields, children cannot attend school safely, traders can neither transport nor sell their goods, investors cannot risk their capital, and communities cannot live in peace. However, the reverse is equally true. Without development, there can be no lasting security.

In order to not split unimportant hairs though, the conversation should not be distracted by framing it as which comes first between security and development. Security and development are mutually reinforcing. One cannot be sustained without the other.

For well over a decade, Northern Nigeria has witnessed repeated military operations, increased defence expenditure, intelligence-driven campaigns, and numerous security interventions. Yet terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, cattle rustling, and violent criminality continue to spread across many parts of the region. This experience suggests that military action, though necessary, addresses only part of the problem.

Violence thrives where hopelessness thrives. It flourishes where there is widespread poverty, youth unemployment, poor education, weak institutions, corruption, injustice, social exclusion, and the absence of meaningful economic opportunities. These conditions do not justify criminality, but they create environments in which criminal organisations and violent extremist groups recruit, expand, and sustain themselves.

The real challenge before the Northern Governors, therefore, is not simply how to finance security operations, but how to transform the social, political, and economic conditions that continue to produce insecurity.

That challenge inevitably raises uncomfortable questions about leadership. The Northern political elite must accept a significant share of responsibility for both the insecurity and the underdevelopment of the region.

This is not to deny the constitutional responsibility of the Federal Government for national security. Neither does it ignore the impact of transnational terrorism, porous borders, climate change, organised crime, illegal arms trafficking, and other external factors. These realities have undoubtedly contributed to the crisis.

Nevertheless, political leadership at the regional and state levels cannot be absolved of responsibility. Political choices made over decades have profoundly shaped the social, economic, and institutional realities of Northern Nigeria.

For too long, politics in many parts of the North has often revolved around the acquisition and retention of political power (and its accrued material benefits) rather than the transformation of society. Leadership has frequently been measured by electoral victories and political influence instead of improvements in the quality of life of the led – the ordinary citizens.

In many instances, politics has become excessively exclusive, serving narrow elite interests rather than the common good. Patronage networks have too often taken precedence over merit. Public resources have sometimes been deployed to consolidate political influence instead of building productive economies, strengthening institutions, improving education, modernising agriculture, expanding healthcare, or creating employment opportunities.

The manipulation of ethnic identities and religious sentiments for political advantage has further weakened social cohesion. Rather than serving as powerful instruments of unity, reconciliation, and moral renewal, ethnicity and religion have, at times, been drawn into partisan competition, deepening divisions and distracting attention from the real business of governance and development. This is disturbing.

Equally disturbing has been the persistence of political thuggery. For decades, unemployed young people have been recruited, financed, and used as instruments of electoral competition, only to be abandoned once elections are over. Societies that normalise violence as a political tool should not be surprised when violence evolves into organised criminality, banditry, kidnapping, and other forms of insecurity.

Arguably the greatest long-term tragedy has been the inadequate investment in education and human capital development. No region can achieve sustainable peace while millions of its children remain without access to quality education, technical skills, vocational training, and gainful employment.

Education is not merely a social service; it is one of the strongest foundations of security, productivity, responsible citizenship, innovation, and national development. It is important to note that an educated citizenry is a nation’s first line of defence against social ills. As reported by the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes Laertius, ‘when asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated, Aristotle answered: “as much as the living are to the dead”.

I do not at all want to believe that the leaders in the North prefer to rule over “the dead”. If so, they must prove it in action, now and henceforth. A perspicacious Chief Obafemi Awolowo, widely regarded as the sage of Nigerian politics, is quoted to warn Nigerian leaders’ decades ago that “the children of the poor you failed to train will never let your children have peace”.

Northern Nigeria is richly endowed with comparative advantages. It possesses vast arable land, one of Africa’s largest livestock economies, abundant solid minerals, renewable energy potential, strategic commercial corridors, and a youthful and energetic population. Yet much of this enormous potential remains underutilised.

Instead of aggressively developing these resources to build prosperous and self-sustaining economies, many states have become heavily dependent on monthly allocations from the Federation Account. Such dependence has discouraged innovation, weakened fiscal independence, and slowed economic transformation. A region so richly blessed with natural and human resources should not continue to be defined by poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and underdevelopment.

This is why the governors should, nay must, establish a Northern Nigeria Development Trust Fund.

Such a Fund – judiciously applied I must stress –  should become the principal instrument for rebuilding the region through sustained investment in quality education, agriculture, irrigation, livestock development, agro-processing, industrialisation, healthcare, infrastructure, research, technology, environmental restoration, youth entrepreneurship, women’s economic empowerment, peacebuilding, and institutional reform. Every investment in these sectors would also be an investment in long-term security.

The Security Trust Fund would still have an important role to maintain a peaceful and stable environment for other activities to thrive. It will support intelligence gathering and sharing, logistics, regional coordination, victim support, and partnerships with constitutionally established security agencies. Security interventions should however complement—not substitute for—a comprehensive development strategy.

History offers an enduring lesson in this respect. First, military force may defeat armed groups but development prevents new armed groups from emerging. Second, security operations may restore temporary order but good governance sustains lasting peace. Third, weapons may silence violence for a season, only justice, education, opportunity, inclusive governance, and responsible leadership silence it for generations.

The future of Northern Nigeria will therefore depend less on the amount of money placed in a Security Trust Fund than on whether its leaders are prepared to embrace a new vision of governance—one rooted in accountability, inclusion, productivity, integrity, and human development.

The North needs politics that serves the people rather than entrenched interests, politics that values competence above patronage, politics that unites rather than divides, politics that promotes religious harmony rather than sectarian suspicion, and politics that measures success not by the number of offices controlled but by the number of children educated, jobs created, farms made productive, industries established, hospitals equipped, businesses supported, and communities transformed. Lest we forget, there was once a Northern region like this led by a great man.

The governors have taken an important first step to recognise that the crisis requires a collective regional response.

It bears repeating: the next—and arguably more important—step is to recognise that the most enduring investment in security is not merely additional funding for security operations, but a bold and sustained commitment to integral human capital development.

If Northern Nigeria is to reclaim its historic place as a place of commerce, agriculture, learning, innovation, and civilisation, it must invest not only in protecting lives but also in transforming lives. Security is indispensable, but development is foundational. The North does not need to choose between security and development. It must pursue both simultaneously.

If the political and other leaders of the North desire lasting peace, they must acknowledge the timeless truths that the strongest foundation of security is justice, the surest path to justice is good governance, and the most enduring fruit of good governance is integral human development. Again to borrow from the sage, “man is the sole dynamic in nature; and accordingly, every individual constitutes the supreme economic potential which a country possesses”. I urge the North to take this to heart.

Very Rev. Fr.  Dukiya, Ph.D, a Development Studies scholar and social advocate, is of the Catholic Diocese of Lokoja, Kogi State. He can be reached via: [email protected]