Who Really Benefits from Nigeria’s Endless Chaos?
Prolonged crisis, confusion, or conflict always has beneficiaries.
They may be local power brokers, foreign interests, or both. But one thing is certain: prolonged violence is profitable violence.
In Nigeria, those beneficiaries form a four-part ecosystem: Incubators, Enablers, Sponsors, and Actors.
To solve a problem, you must understand its roots. Most foreign interests cannot gain a foothold without local collaborators. This has been the pattern in many African conflicts, and Nigeria is no exception.
The violence ravaging Nigeria’s North-East, North-West, and North-Central regions is not spontaneous savagery. It is the product of a systematic radicalisation equation with four interconnected pillars: the incubators that breed extremism, the enablers who look away, the sponsors who finance the madness, and the actors who pull the triggers.
Until Nigeria dismantles all four, banditry and terrorism will persist. Fighting only the actors while ignoring the other three is like cutting leaves while the roots remain intact.
The Incubators
These are the systems, institutions, and ideologies that indoctrinate young people—especially in parts of northern Nigeria—with the belief that violence against “others” is a religious duty.
Children who should be in classrooms are instead taught hatred and dehumanisation from a tender age. Nigeria carries the world’s heaviest burden of out-of-school children—over 11 million, according to UNICEF. Among them are millions of Almajiri—young boys sent far from home to study under traditional Qur’anic teachers but often forced to beg for survival.
A report by UNICEF indicates there are about 9.5 million Almajiri children in Nigeria, representing 72 per cent of the nation’s out-of-school children. The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) notes that Boko Haram’s emergence in Northern Nigeria is closely tied to systemic vulnerabilities within the Almajiri system.
Founded by Mohammed Yusuf, an Almajiri graduate himself, the terror group exploited socio-cultural fractures, leveraging identity-based grievances, economic deprivation, and governance failures to recruit marginalised Almajirai.
While the Almajiri system itself does not inherently radicalise individuals, it produces a large, unemployed youth demographic with a strong collective identity, creating fertile ground for extremist exploitation.
The Psychological Dimension
The psychological transformation of a child into a killer does not happen overnight. It is a process of systematic desensitisation—what psychologists call “cognitive opening”—where young minds are gradually conditioned to accept violence as normal, even virtuous.
Deradicalisation experts have documented how extremist groups employ trauma bonding, isolation from family, and constant exposure to graphic violence to break down moral barriers.
Many of today’s terrorists and bandits were toddlers 10 to 15 years ago. The question is: what happened in between? At what point were murderous tendencies and bloodlust infused into them? The incubators provide the answer.
Children who grow up in environments where begging is survival, where the state is absent, and where the only authority is a cleric preaching grievance are psychologically primed for recruitment.
The Enablers
These are individuals and groups that create a conducive environment for extremism to thrive. They lend tacit support, downplay atrocities, or deliberately look away.
They include community informants, compromised officials, and voices that rationalise or “explain away” heinous acts. Some have the authority and resources to mobilise against this madness but choose silence out of convenience, fear, or profiteering.
The Katsina State Government has revealed that 80 per cent of bandit attacks in the state are aided by informants and community members who supply food, drugs, and other items to criminals hiding in the forests. These informants are known for alerting bandits whenever Nigerian Air Force jets leave the airport with the aim of bombing their hideouts.
Without enablers, the “evil industry” of kidnapping and ransom would collapse. A former Director-General of the NYSC, who spent time in captivity, recounted how a suspected supplier contacted a bandit leader in the early hours of the morning to discuss the sale of ammunition. He said the growing sophistication of bandit operations suggests that criminal gangs are not acting alone.
The Sponsors
These are the financiers and logistics backers who operate in the shadows. They provide money, weapons, training, and safe havens.
How do teenagers acquire and operate sophisticated weapons that require years of military training? The answer lies with sponsors—individuals, criminal networks, and sometimes transnational actors who fund and equip extremist groups for profit, power, or ideology.
The collapse of the Libyan state in 2011 allowed Al-Qaeda-aligned traffickers to loot and disperse heavy weapons across the Sahel. Weapons flowing through AQIM-controlled smuggling routes entered West Africa and Nigeria, strengthening Boko Haram, ISWAP, and later banditry networks.
Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff revealed that about 500 million illicit small arms and light weapons are circulating in West Africa, and an estimated 40 per cent of these weapons end up in Nigeria. Nigeria shares over 4,000 kilometres of land borders with its neighbours, most of which are inadequately secured. The porous borders have become major conduits for arms from conflict zones in the Sahel and North Africa.
Intelligence agencies from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have threatened to expose senior Nigerian politicians allegedly sponsoring terrorists and enabling bandits by providing them with key logistics. Investigations have linked certain Nigerian politicians to bandit leaders terrorising rural communities across Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Niger States.
The diversion of funds meant for development or disarmament programmes has allegedly been used to procure arms, as well as facilitate safe havens and logistical support for terrorists across the Nigeria-Niger border.
The Actors
These are the foot soldiers who carry out kidnappings, bombings, and mass killings. They are the visible face of the violence.
Over 60 per cent of terrorist and bandit foot soldiers are not ideologically driven but are individuals coerced, abducted, or caught up in conflict dynamics, according to the National Coordinator of Operation Safe Corridor.
Recent videos online showed terrorists ambushing and killing members of a police anti-bomb squad, then desecrating their bodies while chanting “Alhamdulillah”. One is forced to ask: how did these young men reach a point where they believe such acts please God? That is the full cycle of radicalisation.
The Economy of Violence
Kidnapping in Nigeria has evolved into a structured, profit-driven enterprise. Between July 2024 and June 2025, kidnappers collected at least N2.57 billion in ransom, according to a report by SBM Intelligence.
At least 4,722 people were abducted across 997 kidnapping incidents during the period, while no fewer than 762 people were killed in attacks linked to banditry. The report noted that entire villages were often targeted, with victims sometimes forced to work on bandit-controlled farms and mining sites.
The Northwest accounted for 425 incidents—42.6 per cent of total cases nationwide—and recorded 2,938 victims, representing 62.2 per cent of all abducted persons. Zamfara State recorded the highest number of victims at 1,203, followed by Kaduna and Katsina States.
Ransom payments provide a steady source of funding for weapons acquisition, enabling terrorist groups to expand their operations. The SBM Intelligence report noted that although ransom demands surged sharply in naira terms, the actual value realised by kidnappers in dollar terms remained relatively modest due to the depreciation of the naira—N2.57 billion translates to about $1.66 million at current rates.
Beyond kidnapping, violence has escalated sharply. Deaths linked to bandit attacks and counter-operations rose to 3,974 in 2025 from 1,452 in 2024. A 2025 ECOWAS report highlights arms smuggling as a driver of 12,964 conflict deaths in the first half of 2025 across the Sahel.
Role of Technology and Social Media
Extremists have moved their recruitment and propaganda efforts online, tapping into Nigeria’s fast-growing pool of connected citizens. Boko Haram and ISWAP rely heavily on encrypted apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp for recruitment and coordination.
Analysts note these platforms allow militants to share attack claims, propaganda videos, and even fundraising appeals with reduced fear of interception. ISWAP has switched to using WhatsApp as a secure platform for communication before, during, and after attacks.
TikTok has become a notable battleground—by embedding jihadist messages in Hausa-language songs, dance trends, and memes, militants penetrate algorithmic recommendation feeds that reach millions of northern Nigerian youth. With 24 million users in Nigeria in 2024, TikTok offers extremist groups “a great opportunity to spread propaganda and recruit followers”. Bandit groups in Nigeria’s northwest have used TikTok to broadcast ransom demands, normalising violence in rural communities.
Failure of Basic Governance
Extremism thrives where the state is absent. Poverty in Nigeria climbed to 63 per cent, according to a 2025 World Bank report. Entire communities have been displaced, families separated, and farmers remain unable to access their farmlands safely.
Banditry emerged in the Northwest, often driven by a mix of economic desperation, criminal enterprise, and weak rural governance structures. The persistence of these crises reflects a failure of governance that has left millions without education, economic opportunity, or security.
Solutions: Breaking the Equation
There is hope, but it requires confronting all four pillars simultaneously. The Borno State Government’s “Borno Model” has reintegrated 9,680 former insurgents—including 720 repentant Boko Haram members alongside 992 spouses and 2,050 children—after they underwent deradicalisation, disarmament, rehabilitation, and skills acquisition training.
The programme has seen over 350,000 persons willingly exiting the bush and surrendering to the military. Repentant insurgents are required to swear an oath on the Quran as a final condition before reintegration. “You are returning not just to your communities but to a responsibility to live peacefully, to contribute meaningfully and to reject all forms of violence and extremism,” authorities tell graduates of the programme.
Chief of Defence Staff Christopher Musa insists that “the terrorists we rehabilitate and allow back into Nigerian society are the ones who were forced into terrorism through duress and not combatant terrorists”.
Education reform is critical. UNICEF’s Digital Learning and Skills Empowerment Project has already reached more than 80,000 marginalised children and adolescents across Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, and Sokoto States, providing digital literacy, vocational training, and life-skills coaching.
Prosecuting enablers and sponsors is equally vital. The National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) has developed a Strategic Plan 2025–2030 aimed at ensuring a unified and coordinated government response. Regional cooperation through the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) has led to over 210 Boko Haram terrorists surrendering to troops in the Lake Chad axis, with the MNJTF remaining committed to working with regional partners to bring lasting peace and security to the Lake Chad Basin.
The radicalisation equation can be broken. But it requires honesty about the roots of the crisis, courage to confront enablers and sponsors, and a commitment to education and opportunity over hatred and violence.
The alternative is more of the same: more dead children, more grieving mothers, more communities reduced to ashes. Nigeria cannot afford to keep cutting leaves while the roots remain intact.
By: Allen Durueke
(Ripples)