Northern media professionals on Wednesday said insecurity has been on an upward trajectory since the dawn of 2026, with daily killings and abductions of defenceless Nigerians in their villages by armed bandits and terrorists, particularly in Northern Nigeria.
The media professionals, under the umbrella of the Arewa Broadcast Media Practitioners Forum (ABMPF), lamented that it had become increasingly evident that institutional, material and strategic interventions deployed to tackle insecurity had failed to stem the tide or reverse its worsening trajectory.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja, the Chairman of ABMPF, Alhaji Abdullahi Yelwa, called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to declare a state of emergency on security across the 19 Northern states with immediate effect.
He said: “Recent national uproar over the abduction of pupils and teachers in Oyo State and the death of Major General Abubakar Rabe in bandits’ captivity has once again refocused national attention on the scourge of insecurity, which has been on an upward trajectory since the beginning of 2026.
“Over the years, we have become accustomed to the devastating consequences of terrorism and banditry to the extent that our human sensibilities have been numbed by the regularity and intensity of the mayhem. There are regular kidnappings, raiding and plundering of communities, squalor in IDP camps, and the spectacle of fleeing populations as once-thriving rural settlements turn into ghost towns.
“As media practitioners in the North, we have seen it all. Our reporters daily cover the heinous atrocities of bandits and terrorists. We witness communities gripped by fear, with people fleeing into forests or, in desperation, into rivers for safety. We also see death, squalor and despair in IDP camps, where families are starved and children die of hunger and malnutrition. In many instances, our reporters are first responders when attacks occur. We live daily with these haunting experiences.”
He recalled that at its security summit in Kebbi State in November last year, ABMPF had expressed deep concern over the escalating insecurity across Nigeria, describing it as a situation threatening the very fabric of national cohesion.
According to him, since the beginning of 2026, security infractions have taken an alarming dimension, ranging from coordinated attacks on military formations and deadly ambushes in Borno and Yobe, to relentless killings in Plateau, Niger, Benue, Kogi and Kwara, as well as continued violence in Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina and Kaduna State.
“We therefore call on the Tinubu administration to immediately declare a state of emergency on security in the North, with a clearly defined tactical strategy and timeline for drastically reducing insecurity in the region,” he said.
He further urged Northern leaders at all levels to rise to their responsibilities in addressing insecurity, stressing that many incidents are driven by local circumstances. He called on communities to identify the ecosystem of insecurity and expose informants and collaborators of banditry and terrorism.
Northern leaders, he added, must mobilise citizens to take greater responsibility for their own security, insisting that the culture of victimhood, where communities passively wait for attacks, must end.
“We therefore call for the decentralisation of the tactical strategy of the war. We applaud the creation of state police and forest guards as complementary midterm measures. However, only the massive deployment of conventional forces to dislodge criminals from their forest hideouts can give these agencies a fighting chance,” he added.
Linus Aleke
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