Serving Overseer of Citadel Global Community Church, Tunde Bakare has challenged President Bola Tinubu to confront Nigeria's worsening insecurity head-on, and accused the Federal Government of “playing the role of ostrich” as terrorists expand their attacks across the country.
Speaking during his state of the nation address in Lagos titled “The Darkness Before Dawn,” Bakare warned that Nigeria is “at the center of a looming storm,” adding that the increase in violence coincides with renewed global scrutiny after US President Donald Trump re-designated Nigeria as a country of particular concern over alleged government-tolerated killings of Christians.
“The level of insecurity seems to have worsened… terrorists and bandits are openly challenging the Nigerian state,” he said.
Bakare urged Tinubu to resist the temptation to shape policy around the 2027 elections and instead “initiate holistic reform of the security and governance framework” he had once advocated as an advocate of restructuring.
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“President Bola Tinubu stands at the threshold of history,” Bakare said. “He can either hold the bull or, like his predecessors, give priority to politics, resort to piecemeal intervention, and deal with the situation quickly.”
While acknowledging ongoing federal efforts – including a security emergency declaration and large-scale police recruitment – he stressed that the country's security architecture requires a deep restructuring.
'Nigeria Question'
Bakare said Tinubu must confront the Nigeria Question – unresolved national identity and governance issues that have shaped the country's tensions since independence.
“Who is a Nigerian? What minimum respect should every Nigerian be guaranteed? Under what conditions should groups co-exist?” Political imbalances between North and South, economic disparities, resource control debates and ethnic grievances are fueling instability, he asked.
He said decades of failures to resolve disputes between Hausa farmers and Fulani herdsmen had allowed local tensions to develop into “a sophisticated and deeply entrenched network of terrorism”.
'Stop hiding terrorism as farmer-herder conflict'
Bakare accused the government of minimizing the coordinated armed attacks, especially in the Middle Belt, by merely describing them as farmer-herder conflicts.
He said, “It is a shame for the Nigerian government that these communities would appeal to the US government for help because their own government has failed them.”
He urged the federal government to “directly destroy the camps of armed robbers who hide under the guise of herdsmen of any caste” and continue to massacre civilians.
