From Sambisa to Borgu: terror threats spread into the North-Central

Twelve years after Sambisa Forest became a global byword for the Chibok abductions, the geography of Nigeria’s terror war has grown a new lobe. Security officials and independent monitors now describe a shift of pressure from the North-East into Niger and Kwara, on top of the bandit belt already burning in the North-West.

Boko Haram and ISWAP remain in Borno and along the Lake Chad basin. Joint US–Nigerian strikes in June were reported to have killed around 200 ISWAP fighters in Borno, one of the largest single-day claims in years. That did not empty the North-West, where June alone recorded mass killings in Gummi and Bukkuyum and repeated raids in Sokoto.

In the North-Central, Lakurawa columns and groups described as Ansaru-linked have used ungoverned forest to sit on roads, mosques and farms. The police alert on schools and NYSC camps is the state’s admission that the next target list is civilian and national, not just a village in Zamfara.

Communities are asking for rifles. The Middle Belt Forum this week said every community should be given AK-47s. That is a cry of abandonment, not a doctrine. A country that arms every hamlet without a chain of command is not safer. It is louder.