On Christmas Day, the United States carried out airstrikes against terrorist targets in Sokoto State, marking a disturbing escalation in Nigerias long running security crisis. The strikes were announced by Donald Trump, who accused Islamic State linked groups, including Boko Haram factions, of mass killings and vowed continued action. US Africa Command later confirmed that the operations were conducted in coordination with Nigerian authorities.
Regardless of how Abuja frames it, the symbolism is stark. Nigeria has reached a point where a foreign power feels confident enough to launch kinetic military operations on its soil. For a country that prides itself on sovereignty and regional leadership, this moment should trigger deep national introspection.
The atmospherics of the past few months feel eerily familiar. They are redolent of the helplessness of 2014 and 2015, when insecurity overwhelmed state capacity and Nigeria appeared to be sliding out of control.
Crises are now unfolding almost in synchrony, three especially stand out.
Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province are resurging in the northeast.
Mass kidnappings have escalated across the northwest and north central zones.
Coordinated banditry now plagues major transport corridors across multiple regions.
Each threat has existed before. What is alarming is their simultaneous intensification. That rarely happens unless something systemic has broken down or the playbook is the same.
In 2014, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the most potent voice of opposition. He hounded Goodluck Jonathan for incompetence and indecision, demanded his resignation, and argued that any president who allowed Nigerian territory to fall under insurgent control had forfeited legitimacy. Many Nigerians agreed with him.
Fast forward to 2025 and the roles have reversed. Tinubu is now president. Yet armed non state actors have carved out de facto fiefdoms from Sokoto through Zamfara and into parts of Niger and Kwara states. Mass abductions of schoolchildren that once symbolized the Jonathan era collapse now occur with terrifying regularity under Tinubus watch.
The same constitutional and security architecture that constrained Jonathan continues to constrain Tinubu. Nigerias security system remains centralized, sluggish and reactive. Predictably, the same chorus of political rivals calling for resignation has returned, now directed at Tinubu.
To understand why Nigeria remains trapped in this recurring cycle, one must follow the incentives that sustain insecurity.
In 2014, Boko Haram financed its insurgency through robbery, looting, cattle rustling, bank raids and forced taxation of occupied communities.
In the northwest, a different conflict economy took root. What began as local clashes between armed herders and farming communities evolved into an expansive banditry ecosystem. Kidnapping proved more profitable than cattle rustling. Negotiators professionalized. Camps were established. Ransom payments moved through informal financial channels. Corrupt intermediaries flourished.
By 2020, analysts were describing Nigerias kidnap economy as a mature market with predictable cycles. When cash ran low, criminals looted harvests or taxed miners. When security forces pressured one corridor, gangs migrated to another. When public outrage dulled, mass abductions were staged to restore leverage. The crisis became self sustaining.
What sustains this national theatre of insecurity is not mysterious. Corruption drains operational resources and creates incentives for some actors to tolerate prolonged instability. Youth unemployment supplies endless recruits. Intelligence systems remain weak. Law enforcement is politicized. Communities that cooperate with the state are left exposed to reprisals. Simplistic religious and ethnic narratives obstruct honest diagnosis.
Yet this cycle is not irreversible.
The kidnap economy must be treated as a financial crime, requiring surveillance of ransom flows, strict enforcement of anti money laundering laws, and prosecution of urban collaborators who profit from terror.
The military must purge procurement fraud and prioritize intelligence led operations that protect civilians rather than advertise body counts. Schools require real protective infrastructure, not ceremonial safe school pledges. The state must rebuild trust with communities through consistency and accountability, not episodic raids followed by abandonment.
Nigeria must also confront uncomfortable options. One such option is the controlled use of foreign military contractors. In 2015, Jonathan engaged South African and Eastern European specialists who helped reclaim territory from Boko Haram. That arrangement was later cancelled out of nationalist pride, and the momentum evaporated. Given todays scale of threat and the reality of foreign powers now conducting strikes on Nigerian soil, specialized external support under strict oversight deserves sober reconsideration. Saving lives must matter more than protecting political ego.
The US strikes in Sokoto should not be mistaken for a solution. They are a symptom. They signal how far Nigerias security credibility has eroded and how vulnerable the state now appears.
Ten years ago, Nigerians demanded that children be safe in school and villages free from occupation by armed groups. A decade later, they are making the same plea. If it was fair in 2014 to argue that no leader should preside over the occupation of Nigerian communities by non state actors, it is fair to say the same today.
Nigerians want what they have always deserved. A country where sending a child to school is not an act of faith in divine mercy. A government that treats mass abduction as an intolerable crisis rather than a routine inconvenience. An end to a nightmare that feels scripted to repeat itself every decade.
This pattern can be broken. Whether it will be is the question now hanging over the republic.
By Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
Duruebube Uzii na Abosi
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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