Money cannot solve insecurity

Greg Odogwu

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When northern states’ governors on Monday announced their decision to create a regional Security Trust Fund with which to wrestle the worsening acts of banditry and terrorism in their region, I was overwhelmed by an impulsive sense of alarm. They said that each state and its local governments would be contributing N1bn every month, to be deducted at source and used “to finance coordinated security operations across the region”. I was distressed because the news made it seem as if these leaders never had any money for tackling insecurity, before now.

Truth be told, these governors are rolling in dollars. Since the removal of the fuel subsidy, a year and a half ago, state governors have been the exclusive beneficiaries. Yes, governors receive more Federation Account Allocation Committee money due to subsidy savings, with some states experiencing significant increases, reportedly averaging over 50 per cent or even doubling in some cases. This increase is a direct result of the funds that were previously used for fuel subsidies now being channelled to the Federal Government and subsequently distributed through FAAC to all tiers of government.

For instance, Plateau, a northern state, had its monthly FAAC allocation increase from an average of N6.69bn to N10.13bn after May 2023, a 51.4 per cent jump. The increased funds are intended to be used for development, but many state governors have failed to visibly translate this windfall into improved public services, infrastructure, and a higher minimum wage for workers, leading to concerns about transparency and how the extra money is being spent. The irony is that the citizens keep pointing fingers at the President instead of the governors, who now have the power to make things happen.

Meanwhile, the most telling evidence is from a World Bank study. It says that poverty has increased in Nigeria, with an estimated 139 million Nigerians living in poverty in 2025, a significant rise from 81 million in 2019. The World Bank reports that despite some macroeconomic stabilisation, these gains have not yet translated into improved living conditions for the majority of the population. Instructively, rural poverty is much higher at an estimated 75.5 per cent, compared to 31 per cent in urban areas. Indeed, it does not require much mental rigour to connect the dots – the Federal Government’s ‘macroeconomic stabilisation’ was channelled through the governors to end rural poverty, but the governors dropped the ball.

This is why President Bola Tinubu told them to “wet the grass small” in a viral video some months back. It is obvious that Tinubu, who was once a governor and always identifies with subnational leaders, thought he could count on them to deliver the benefits of subsidy removal to the grassroots. He saw them as middlemen who could help push his agenda. However, he became concerned when there was nothing to show for all the money he put in their care for the people. Hence, his statement “wet the grass small” is a metaphor for governors to increase their engagement and deliver progressive change at the grassroots level, as he said Nigerians were still complaining about a lack of impact from governance.

Let it be known that the expected interventions include security infrastructure building, manpower engagement, capacity building, intelligence-gathering, digital mapping, and fidelity assessment. In fact, everything that money can buy in the area of safeguarding the lives and property of the masses they swore to protect. Tinubu’s ‘wet the grass’ speech was a call for help, urging governors to step up their efforts in developing communities to better meet the needs of citizens.

Therefore, when the northern states’ governors suddenly wake up from their slumber and decide to contribute paltry N1bn from their cookie jar of contumacious cream, one cannot help a sense of horror at our leaders’ disdain for the people. These entitled czars never realised that insecurity did not just materialise from the blue; it grew over time out of the poverty-stricken and climate-impacted rural communities. The governors were elected over the past decades to enact policies and deploy funds towards providing social and environmental solutions, but they looked nowhere but their secure emperors’ citadels known as government houses.

Beyond the glossy golden gates of the governor’s home [and the state capital], you can barely find a tarred road or manicured boulevard in their poverty-stricken domain. Since 1999, the infrastructure they inherited from previous military and civilian administrations has degraded without anything to replace it. Even up till this moment of heavy cash allotments to them, some states are still struggling to pay the N70,000 minimum wage. Worse still, the local government’s administrative offices have been turned into a salary-paying slot machine, where you can find civil servants only on pay day. The local government chairmen, despite Tinubu’s resolve to make them independent, are still irretrievably tied to the aprons of the almighty governors.

Nevertheless, on another level, the northern governors’ action betrays our penchant for throwing money at problems instead of seeking sophisticated ways of tackling complex problems.

This is the sort of laziness that can never be found in serious climes. It is a sin all Nigerian leaders are guilty of. In fact, every Nigerian is tied to this malady in one way or the other. We judge people by the amount in their bank account – that is how shallow we are, that we go to the extent of renting luxurious cars to convince people of our competence and sincerity at job interviews and marriage proposals.

We can say that the government and our political leaders have upped the game played by the masses. They throw money at us because that is the language we understand. Instead of providing jobs for the youth or creating an enabling environment for innovators to thrive, the government announces that it will be sharing N5,000 to unemployed Nigerians and N20,000 to poor families. Case closed. Nobody pauses to ponder the permanent infrastructural solutions the trillions of naira to be shared out would have been able to provide if they were invested in clearly thought-out development concepts.

This is the same formula adopted by the northern governors. They are not discussing the core fundamental issues at the heart of banditry and terrorism in their region. They just want to throw more money, as it seems the ones they have been stuffing in have been swallowed up by more mouths that emerged from the new enterprise known as insecurity. They never considered how the terror their maladministration created could become a bottomless pit that would never be filled up. Perhaps, they do not give a damn and are only there to fill their pockets until the time they hand over to another greedy politician, the same way they received the baton of exploitation from their predecessors.

For the rest of us who want an end to this insecurity hell, let us keep our eyes on the ball. It is a complex game of greed and geopolitics laced with time-sewn social and environmental distress and orchestrated by the strong and mighty at different layers of influence. Here, I can point to two such concerns. The first is climate change, which has ravaged Northern Nigeria, rendering many young people jobless and vulnerable to radicalisation by jihadists and bandits. The second is illegal mining. There are many rare earth materials and solid minerals that Northern Nigeria has in abundance, and which cold-blooded international and local businesspeople exploit under the insecurity they created as a smokescreen for uninterrupted exploitation.

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