EDITORIAL: Kaiama kidnappings and the need to root out intelligence sabotage

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The siege of terrorists in the North-central part of Nigeria, characterised by serial kidnappings and the killings of citizens, appears to have put the security chiefs at their wits’ end. On the 3rd of February, an armed group invaded Woro and Nukku communities in Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State and kidnapped 176 persons, most of whom are women and children. This was after they had left the blood trails of over 100 killed persons and the smouldering ruins of houses and shops.

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What is deeply disturbing is the fact that intelligence earlier provided by the village head about the imminence of the attack to the State Security Service (SSS) was leaked to the terror group. Few things can be more embarrassing to President Tinubu, who had, late last year, declared a state of emergency on security in the country.

A media report, corroborated by many sources, says that the mass murderers had written to the two communities of their intention to come and preach to them, what is believed to be an extremist or Islamist doctrine, which they had refused. The emir, Biu Salihu, had taken the group’s letter to the State Security Service (SSS) in the area to lodge a formal complaint. This had incensed the terror group, on finding out about the complaint through a leak.

So daring were these felons that they struck the communities shortly afterwards, around 5 p.m. on 3 February, finished their heinous operations and left without any trace. What a shameful security incapacitation of the Nigerian State! A resident, Mohammed Abdulkareem, told Al Jazeera, “Here we buried 120 people,” and in another burial site, the remains of 23 Christians are said to have been interred. Among those killed were two children of the emir. His wife and three children were abducted.

The charred remains of corpses assault the sight of villagers who comb the bushes as they seek to account for missing persons. Among the dead were students who had just returned from school, a school principal, and a headmistress.

Yet, this was a tragedy that the Kwara State Government played down (as the police often do), with its claim that just between 20 and 30 persons were kidnapped. The Al-Sunnah terror group, which claimed responsibility for the attack, released a video last week that put a lie to the official narrative. It showed pictures of 176 abductees from Woro. Disdainfully, it stated, “Kwara State Government lied to Nigeria and to the whole world.”

Amnesty International, which is appalled, as are Nigerians, described the disaster as a “stunning security failure.” It could not have been put better. However, the country has been experiencing this sort of let-down, which, in PREMIUM TIMES’ view, is at the heart of the unrelenting mass abductions and killings of Nigerians by non-state actors.

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In November 2025, a similar intelligence breach headlined the kidnapping of 25 students of Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, in Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State. Governor Mohammed Idris of the state, who had passed on the intelligence to the SSS, held an emergency Security Council meeting that resolved to provide round-the-clock protection for the students. He viewed the whole affair as “clear sabotage.” The kidnapping of 300 pupils of Government Science Secondary School (GSSS), Kankara, Katsina State, in 2020, was also a result of not acting on intelligence.

The alleged SSS leakage of intelligence in the Kaiama incident is a clear and present danger. President Tinubu, as the commander-in-chief, should ensure that the fifth columnists in our security services are fished out. He has often called on Nigerians to provide information or intelligence to help security operatives, so that they could be well protected in turn. But for this information to now become bayonets to be turned against the people by terrorists is an oxymoron that is inexcusable.

As the government continues to cover up those undermining Nigeria’s counterintelligence operations, these enemies of the state have audaciously formed a trade union known as the Nigeria Terrorists Association (NTA), evident in their recent letters to four communities in Kaiama Local Government Area LGA – Aho, Dunshigogo, Ira and Inaja – of their resolve to return to wreak havoc in these communities.

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These are incongruities, unfolding ironically, at a time when the president had declared a nationwide state of emergency on security, on 26 November last year. “We are responding by deploying more boots on the ground, especially in security-challenged areas.” The realities in Kwara State cannot be remedied by the additional 50,000 police officers he had ordered recruited, or even more for the military, because the processes take time for them to start functioning optimally, but by tackling evident contradictions within our security structures.

When a battalion of soldiers is deployed to an area after hundreds of people have been massacred and kidnapped, as is the case in Kaiama, it reveals a lack of seriousness in the search for safety for the people. The government must be stern with security personnel who leak operational secrets, take measures to identify them, and ensure that they are adequately sanctioned. The leadership has to acknowledge that something is not right in its counterinsurgency efforts, then embark on a rethink and strategic reset of the system.

Very importantly, the government must take every possible step to rescue the 176 people abducted in Kaiama, as was the case in the over 160 worshippers kidnapped in the Kajuru area of Niger State in January.

The official disposition seems to be that these societies’ enemies, whether in the North-Central, North-West or North-East, where Boko Haram and ISWAP hold sway, are invincible, for which foreign forces are required to route them. PREMIUM TIMES rejects this defeatist idea. The government must show more resolve and determination. An unmitigated resolve to exterminate terrorists was how the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka were defeated in 2009, and the Red Brigades were destroyed in Italy. Our own struggle against terrorism should not be different.