Appraising Latest Security Measures

— An Analytical Report on School Closures, Mining Suspension, and the ₦1bn per State Monthly Security Trust Fund

AWC Security & Policy Desk | December 2025

Northern Nigeria, battered by a decade-long wave of terrorism, banditry, mass abductions, and economic sabotage, has entered a new era of drastic counter-measures.

From closing schools to shutting mining sites, and from erecting military hurdles on highways to proposing a ₦1 billion per State monthly regional security trust fund, governors are scrambling for solutions.

But emerging evidence suggests these clampdowns and economic shutdowns may offer only temporary relief—while deepening poverty, weakening regional competitiveness, slowing down the economy and ultimately feeding the very insecurity they seek to end.

This analytical report examines the logic behind these measures and asks: Can shutting down a region solve what began as an economic and governance failure?

1. Northern Governors’ ₦1 Billion Per State Monthly Security Trust Fund: A Necessary Investment or a Financial Sinkhole?

In a recent high-level meeting in Kaduna, Northern governors agreed to push a bold proposal:
a ₦1 billion per State monthly security trust to fund joint operations, technology acquisition, forest clearance, community policing, and synchronized intelligence work.

The Logic Behind the Fund

• Insecurity costs the North more than ₦13 trillion annually in lost agricultural output, migration, destroyed assets, and displaced populations (NBS & SBM Intelligence).
• State-by-state interventions have failed; banditry networks are now interlinked across borders.
• A joint regional command structure needs predictable funding—not political donations.

Potential Benefits

• Long-term financing for air surveillance, forest guards, drones, and rapid-response teams.
• A unified strategy, instead of 19 governors fighting 19 different wars.
• Reduction in federal dependency.

Concerns

• Oversight: Who manages monthly funds?
• Redundancy: Will this clash with the planned national forest guard service?
• Sustainability: Can states already battling salary arrears commit monthly?
• Political capture: Will security funding become a new business for political elites?

2. School Closures as “Panacea”: A Cure Worse Than the Disease

Following serial abductions in Kaduna, Kebbi, Zamfara, Niger and Katsina, many states have closed schools in rural corridors, especially boarding schools.

Short-Term Logic

• No students = no mass abduction.
• Reduces negotiation costs, ransom diplomacy, and political embarrassment.
• Temporarily disrupts bandit recruitment of schoolchildren.

But the Costs Are Catastrophic

• UNICEF reports over 1.5 million children out of school due to insecurity, worsening the North’s already dire education crisis.
• Northern Nigeria now hosts 70% of Nigeria’s total out-of-school children.
• Without education, a generation becomes vulnerable to radicalization, trafficking, drug gangs, and extremist ideologies.
• Girls are disproportionately affected, reversing years of progress on girl-child education.

Core Question:

Can insecurity be solved by shrinking the future workforce of a region already economically behind?

The answer is a resounding no.

3. Mining Suspension: Security Solution or Economic Self-Sabotage?

The Northern Governors’ call for 6 months suspension of mining activities in volatile northern states has been framed as a strategy to audit operators, flush out illegal miners, and disrupt terrorist financing.

This clampdown, expected to last six months, aims to:

Possible Government Goals

1. Audit mining licenses, operators, and production flows.
2. Cut off illegal mining revenues—a major funding source for terror groups in Zamfara, Plateau, Niger, Kaduna and Taraba.
3. Enable deployment of military and DSS units to hotspots without civilian interference.
4. Install digital surveillance infrastructure (GIS mapping, remote sensing, satellite tracking).

The Big Questions

• Is the suspension truly an operational window for security restructuring?
• Or an admission that the government cannot protect legal economic activity?

Risks of the Mining Shutdown

• ₦600 billion annual loss in federal and state mining revenue.
• Thousands of miners, traders, and service providers lose income—making recruitment by bandits easier.
• Entrenches the monopoly of illegal mining syndicates who operate underground regardless of government orders.
• Gives foreign black-market actors (Chinese, Malian, Sudanese networks) more bargaining power.

Reality Check:

Cutting off legitimate economic processes rarely cuts off terrorism; it often strengthens it.

4. Are Clampdowns a Real Solution? Lessons from Nigeria and Global Conflict Zones

What research shows

From Afghanistan to Mali to Colombia, empirical studies indicate:

• When the economy shrinks, insurgency grows.
• When schools close, radicalization rises.
• When mining halts, illegal networks flourish.
• When communities lose livelihoods, insecurity becomes an alternative economy.

Nigeria risks repeating these patterns.

Structural Causes Being Ignored

• Weak local policing.
• Ungoverned forest regions (over 9 million hectares nationwide).
• Arms proliferation from Libya, Sudan, and Niger.
• Youth unemployment exceeding 57% in some northern states.
• Weak prosecution: less than 4% of banditry suspects are ever convicted.

Clampdowns do not address any of these.

5. What Will Actually Work? A Practical Roadmap

1. Deploy Forest Guards + Technology

• The new Nigerian Forest Security Service Bill should be merged with governors’ plans.
• DSS-led forest guard units equipped with drones and heat sensors can neutralize camps.

2. Community Intelligence Networks

• Bandits live inside communities; intelligence must come from locals.
• States must invest in safe reporting lines and reward systems.

3. Economic Empowerment

• Empower farmers, miners, traders, and youths through microcredit & cooperatives.
• Create economic alternatives that compete with banditry economics.

4. Secure Schools, Don’t Close Them

• Build perimeter fencing, early-warning alarms, armed guards, and safe corridors.
• Adopt the Safe Schools Initiative 2.0 with federal funding.

5. Regulate Mining, Don’t Shut It Down

• Install on-site monitoring teams.
• Use remote sensors to track mineral extraction.
• License clusters, not individuals, to reduce illegal operations.

Conclusion: Clampdowns May Calm Headlines, but They Don’t Solve Insecurity

Northern Nigeria’s insecurity crisis cannot be cured by:

• Closing schools
• Suspending mining
• Blocking roads with hurdles
• Imposing blanket restrictions

The region needs active security, not security by retreat.

While the governors’ ₦1 billion per State monthly trust signals political seriousness, the policies surrounding school closures and mining suspension risk creating a deeper security vacuum, mass unemployment, and further radicalization.

If the North is to win this war, economic life must expand, not shrink — and citizens must feel safer living, learning, and working, not hiding.

What the governors agreed: ₦1 billion per month (total pooled fund)

The 19 northern states, under the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF), announced the creation of a regional Security Trust Fund. Each state and its local governments are to contribute ₦1 billion monthly.

The money is to be “deducted at source” under a new framework — meaning automatic mobilisation through state and local-government revenues.

Across all 19 states, the fund is projected to mobilise roughly ₦19 billion per month (₦1 bn × 19 states).

What this means — and what to watch out for

• If fully implemented, annual mobilisation could exceed ₦228 billion

If the fund is consistently collected for 12 months at ₦19 billion per month, the total would reach about ₦228 billion annually.

• The trust fund is ambitious — but its success depends on transparency, governance and follow-through

Mobilising large sums monthly offers potential: sustained financing for security operations, intelligence, forest-security, rapid-response, etc. But the credibility of the fund will depend on:

Timely and full deductions from states and LGAs

Transparent allocation and accounting

Clear oversight mechanisms — especially given concerns of corruption and mismanagement in similar schemes

• This marks a shift: regional ownership of security financing

Rather than relying solely on federal emergency declarations or ad-hoc funding, the North is attempting a regional solidarity fund.

If functional, this could be an important model for sub-national security financing — but it’s a high-stakes gamble.

Summary facts of the Fund

The recent announced security trust fund is ₦1 billion per month per state, leading to ~₦19 billion pooled monthly across the North.

On an annualised basis, this could amount to about ₦228 billion figure.

The fund, if implemented and managed correctly, could provide critical, sustained financing for security operations. But success depends heavily on transparency, state / local-government cooperation, and effective administration.