WHY THE NORTH-CENTRAL SECURITY MATTERS: FROM COLLECTIVE ANXIETY TO A COMMON SECURITY ARCHITECTURE
……Gov. Alia’s Own Efforts.
By Donald Kumun
The North Central region of Nigeria has reached a point at which insecurity can no longer be treated as a collection of isolated state-level emergencies. From Benue and Plateau to Niger, Nasarawa, Kogi, Kwara and the Federal Capital Territory, the security challenges confronting communities increasingly transcend administrative boundaries.
Farmer-herder conflicts, banditry, kidnapping, communal violence, terrorism spillover, and organised criminality, have created a security ecosystem in which an attack in one state can rapidly produce a latent effect (unintended consequences) in another.
That is why the recent North-Central Zonal Security Summit 2026, hosted in Benue State under the theme: “Collaborative Approaches to Strengthening Security and Regional Stability”, is not another ceremonial gathering of government officials, and several multi-dimensional stakeholders.
Organised by the Ministry of Defence in collaboration with the Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, Dr. Abiodun Essiet, the summit could simply be described as a constructive idea whose time has come.
Recent developments underline the urgency. In August 2026, a mass kidnapping in Niger State involving hundreds of people, dramatically illustrated how criminal networks can exploit difficult terrain and porous boundaries across the geo-political zone. Earlier assessments have similarly identified farmer-herder tensions, communal clashes, banditry and kidnapping, as persistent security challenges in the North-Central.
The central problem, therefore, is not merely the presence of criminals. It is the interconnectedness of the theatre in which they operate. A criminal fleeing one state does not stop at a political boundary. Intelligence does not become irrelevant because a forest cuts across two jurisdictions. Neither does the trauma of displacement recognise state borders. Consequently, the response must be regional, intelligence-led, community-based, and institutionally coordinated.
This is precisely where Governor Alia’s welcome address at the summit, assumes significance.
The Governor’s speech was remarkable because it did not reduce insecurity to a military problem. He acknowledged that the challenges are “multidimensional” and therefore require multidimensional solutions.
His most consequential argument was his insistence that collaboration must travel beyond government offices and security formations to traditional institutions and community leaders. His observation that these custodians of the land “know things we do not know” and “hear things before we hear them”, captures one of the most important principles of contemporary community security: effective intelligence begins with communities.
The Governor’s intervention also challenged the comfortable assumption that soldiers and weapons alone can defeat insecurity. His call for intelligence-sharing, engagement with border communities and confrontation of poverty and idleness, demonstrates a broader understanding of the factors that serves as drivers and enablers of violence.
That position is consistent with emerging evidence that security challenges in the North Central involve overlapping disputes over land and resources, communal tensions, and organized criminal activity.
For Benue, this message carries particular weight. A state whose economic identity is deeply tied to agriculture cannot achieve prosperity when farmers are afraid to cultivate their land. Indeed, Governor Alia’s assertion that insecurity in the North Central ultimately becomes a national food-security problem is not rhetorical flourish. Recent research has linked insecurity across northern Nigeria to worsening poverty and weakened household resilience.
For the people of Benue, regional coordination means that the state should no longer have to confront transboundary threats in isolation. It creates an opportunity for stronger intelligence networks, coordinated border surveillance, faster information exchange, harmonized emergency responses and deeper collaboration between security agencies and local communities.
It also gives Benue the opportunity to move from being merely a victim of insecurity to becoming a strategic participant in designing the security architecture of the region.
The Governor’s decision to secure the summit for Benue therefore has symbolic and strategic importance. It places the state at the centre of a conversation that directly concerns its survival, productivity and future.
His most powerful national argument was simple: when the North Central is insecure, Nigeria suffers.
Benue feeds the nation. Niger and other North Central states possess enormous agricultural and mineral resources. The region also serves as an important economic corridor. Its instability therefore affects food prices, internal migration, investment, commerce and national cohesion.
The summit must consequently produce more than speeches and communiqués. Governor Alia himself warned against allowing “a good speech” to substitute for “a good outcome.”That is perhaps the defining agenda before the summit to quell insecurity challenges within the region.
Its success is to be ultimately measured by what remains after the microphones are switched off: a functioning regional intelligence-sharing mechanism; stronger community early-warning systems; coordinated responses across state boundaries; meaningful involvement of traditional rulers and community leaders; protection of farmers and vulnerable communities; and a common commitment to addressing the socioeconomic conditions that criminals exploit.
The North Central does not need another declaration of concern. It needs a security architecture. And the summit suitably fits in. And if Benue’s summit succeeds in building one, its significance will extend far beyond the state. The summit represent a decisive movement from fragmented responses to collective security—and from managing insecurity to preventing it.
Donald Kumun, is the Principal Special Assistant to the Benue State Governor on Print Media and writes from Makurdi State Capital.
