The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has blamed the worsening wave of banditry, kidnapping and terrorism across Nigeria on sabotage by powerful interests, entrenched corruption and the influence of shadowy cabals within and outside government.
In a statement issued on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, the group said the persistence of insecurity despite huge budgetary allocations to defence and internal security showed that “forces working against national stability” were deliberately frustrating genuine reform efforts.
Afenifere lamented that initiatives aimed at improving electricity supply, water provision, agriculture, education, the economy and national security had repeatedly collapsed because of corruption and complicity by influential individuals who benefit from the country’s dysfunction.
“The truth is that many of the people who should make solutions work are the same people sabotaging them,” Ajayi said, adding that this pattern partly explained why Nigeria continued to struggle with basic governance despite decades of reforms and massive public spending.
The group expressed concern over the expanding reach of violent crimes, noting that banditry, kidnapping and cattle rustling — once largely restricted to the North-East and North-West — had now spread into parts of the South-West and North-Central.
It listed Kogi, Kwara, Osun, Ekiti and Ondo states, as well as Oke-Ogun and Ibarapa areas of Oyo State and Yewa and Ijebu Waterside communities in Ogun State, as new flashpoints of insecurity.
“People now plan their daily activities around safety, not productivity,” Afenifere said, warning that livelihoods, education and social cohesion were increasingly being sacrificed to fear and survival.
Ajayi recalled how the late former Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige, struggled unsuccessfully to reform the power sector, just as billions of naira budgeted for refinery rehabilitation and road construction were allegedly squandered with little impact on national development.
He added that despite consistent increases in security and defence spending, violence continued to escalate, raising fresh concerns about accountability and transparency in the use of public funds.
The group also criticised what it described as “dangerous appeasement strategies,” including calls by some leaders for negotiations with bandits and reports of governors granting pardons to convicted terrorists, which it said emboldened criminals and weakened the rule of law.
Afenifere further warned that unchecked territorial expansion by armed herders and foreign interests seeking access to Nigeria’s natural resources — often outside due process — had intensified communal violence, displacement, extortion and abductions in vulnerable communities.
To reverse the trend, the group advocated a comprehensive security overhaul, including the immediate establishment of state police, restructuring of the national security architecture, and tighter surveillance of ungoverned spaces across the country.
It also called for community re-orientation on the sanctity of human life, de-radicalisation and rehabilitation of indoctrinated youths, better training, motivation and equipment for security operatives, and the purging of saboteurs within law enforcement agencies.
Ajayi said that pending constitutional amendments to enable state policing, the President could issue an executive order allowing states to recruit security personnel from among their indigenes to strengthen local intelligence and response capacity.
Referencing recent remarks by the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Afenifere noted that President Bola Tinubu had authorised expanded security deployments, improved intelligence coordination and thorough investigations into attacks on religious and vulnerable communities.
The group urged the Federal Government to ensure strict implementation of these measures, insisting that only decisive action, transparency and accountability could restore peace and protect human dignity.
“These steps are not optional. They are necessary if Nigeria’s plural society must survive and thrive without being held hostage by bandits, terrorists and criminal networks,” Ajayi said.
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