A tide of violence, fueled by an expanding jihadist network in the Sahel, is steadily creeping from Nigeria’s North-West region into its food basket, the Middle Belt. The recent massacres in Benue State are not isolated incidents but the brutal signature of a calculated advance that threatens to plunge the nation into a catastrophic food crisis. This is not mere banditry, as it is often perceived by naïve bureaucrats. This is a strategic conquest of fertile lands, and the Nigerian government—hobbled by weak political will, decaying internal governance mechanisms, and a fractured regional security architecture—is failing to stem the tide.
The connection between the escalating violence in Nigeria’s agricultural heartland and the operations of terrorist groups in the Sahel is undeniable and increasingly direct. As groups like Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) consolidate their power across the Sahel, their affiliates and splinter factions are pushing southwards. We should be worried. This southern expansion is a deliberate strategy to secure resources, establish new operational bases, and exploit existing ethnic and religious fault lines.
Our perennially porous borders—already known as the country’s Achilles’ heel—have become superhighways for the transit of fighters, sophisticated weaponry, and a hardened ideology of conquest. All of these are geared toward transforming rural Nigerian communities into battlegrounds for the foreseeable future. We are witnessing a clear tactical spillover, where the guerrilla strategies perfected in Mali and Burkina Faso are now being deployed with chilling efficiency against farming communities in states like Benue and Plateau.
The recent spate of killings in Benue State, which has displaced over 6,000 people in just the latest wave of violence, is a grim awakening to what is likely to be a new reality. These are not random acts of violence. They are targeted, systematic attacks on farming communities, designed to instill terror, seize arable land, and permanently disrupt the agricultural cycle. The playbook is simple in outlook and barbaric in style: massacre villagers, burn their homes, and occupy their ancestral lands. The consequence is a manufactured food crisis. When farmers are murdered, displaced, and live in constant fear, they cannot cultivate their lands.
Benue State alone is responsible for a significant percentage of Nigeria’s staple food production. With its fields lying fallow and its farmers huddled in internally displaced persons’ camps, the ripple effect is immediate and devastating: food production plummets, prices soar, and the threat of widespread hunger becomes a stark reality for Africa’s most populous nation.
This dire situation is worsened by the spectacular collapse of the regional security framework. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), once a beacon of regional cooperation, is now a house divided—a shadow of its former self. The emergence of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)—a military bloc comprising Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso—has not only shattered the façade of ECOWAS unity but also rendered regional forces like the ECOWAS Standby Force (formerly ECOMOG) and the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) practically impotent.
The AES, born out of a shared sense of abandonment and a vitriolic rejection of former colonial power France, has created a new, hostile geopolitical reality. The recent imposition of tariffs on goods from ECOWAS nations by the AES signals a deepening rift and the potential for a trade war, further destabilising an already volatile region. For the MNJTF—a force specifically created to combat the Boko Haram insurgency and its offshoots—this political schism is a logistical and strategic nightmare.
How can a joint task force effectively combat a transnational threat when its member states are at odds, and a significant portion of the battleground is controlled by a new, competing alliance that views its very existence with suspicion? The institutional integrity of these regional bodies is in tatters, leaving a dangerous vacuum that jihadist groups are all too willing to fill. They thrive in the seams of this fractured continent.
Into this void steps a new, and arguably more cynical, foreign actor: Russia. As the Sahelian states summarily jettison their colonial ties with France, they are increasingly turning to Russia as a security partner. Moscow, through its state-sponsored private military contractors, offers a seemingly straightforward proposition: security assistance with no strings attached, particularly concerning human rights and democratic governance.
However, to view Russia as a dependable partner for peace is a dangerous delusion. Russia’s engagement in the Sahel is opportunistic, extractive, and transactional. It thrives on instability, offering a veneer of security to embattled military juntas in exchange for strategic access to natural resources and a geopolitical foothold in West Africa. The notion that a nation that profits from chaos will be a harbinger of peace is not just naïve—it is a reckless gamble with the lives of millions.
Russia’s model is not to build sustainable peace but to manage chaos to its own benefit. The spread of this brand of “security assistance” is not a solution—it is an accelerant for the very banditry and violence that plagues Nigeria’s Middle Belt. The violence is not a byproduct of this new partnership; it is a feature. This externally sponsored instability provides the perfect cover for the land-grabbing and resource warfare now unfolding with ferocity.
The sad reality is that Nigeria is facing a convergence of threats that its current leadership and regional alliances are ill-equipped to handle. The jihadist cancer metastasising from the Sahel is not just a security threat—it is an existential threat to the nation’s food security and its very cohesion. The killings in Benue are a harbinger of a much larger, more devastating famine to come if decisive action is not taken. This is not a time for political platitudes or diplomatic niceties. It is a time for a stark and brutal assessment of a failing state and a fractured region on the precipice of a catastrophe of its own making, fanned by the flames of geopolitical ambition.
Merely decrying the crisis is a luxury Nigeria can no longer afford. Any viable path forward requires immediate, decisive, and internally driven action. Waiting for a fractured ECOWAS or opportunistic foreign partners is a recipe for state failure. The first concrete step must be the aggressive implementation of the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP). This cannot remain a policy on paper; it must be funded and enforced as a national security priority. Establishing modern, secure ranching reserves with guaranteed access to land, water, and veterinary services is the only sustainable way to dismantle the archaic and conflict-prone system of open grazing, which has become the primary vehicle for jihadist infiltration and land-grabbing. This must be paired with a firm judicial process that holds perpetrators of violence—regardless of ethnicity—accountable, ending the corrosive culture of impunity that has emboldened attackers.
Simultaneously, Nigeria must overhaul its security doctrine in the Middle Belt. This means moving beyond reactive military deployments to establishing a permanent, integrated security architecture specifically for its agricultural zones. This should involve creating community-led “Agro-Ranger” units, composed of vetted locals who are properly trained, equipped, and integrated with formal military and police commands to provide real-time intelligence and rapid response. Furthermore, securing the nation’s food supply must be designated as a strategic objective of the highest importance, justifying the use of advanced surveillance technology, including drones and satellite imagery, to monitor vulnerable farming corridors and border areas. A nation that cannot secure its food producers has already lost control of its destiny. These are not aspirational goals—they are the minimum requirements for national survival.
Adio writes from Lagos, Nigeria
