Tinubu Seen Surrounding Himself with Deniability Ahead of Elections
By Onibiyo Segun
President Bola Tinubu’s announcement of Major General Adeyinka A. Famadewa (Rtd) as Homeland Security Adviser stunned Nigerian political and security observers. Some analysts argue the move reflects mounting pressure to manage perception of the President’s track record on fighting terrorism during the walk up leading to presidential elections in 2027.
2027 Elections And Political Survival
“Elections hinge on perception,” said Professor Boroface Jaja, Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Port Harcourt in Rivers State.
“The public sees a government unable or unwilling to protect its citizens, and that perception is decisive,” Jaja told TruthNigeria.
Analysts suggest the Homeland Security Adviser office may serve several purposes simultaneously: centralizing crisis management, reassuring foreign partners, projecting decisive leadership, and insulating the presidency from direct blame for worsening violence.
“It’s a defensive political maneuver,” Jaja said.
“Not because the National Security Adviser is ineffective, but because the office represents entrenched interests the president cannot confront directly,” Jaja noted.
Legal experts note that the office of Homeland Security Adviser is not backed by any Nigerian statute.
Existing law only recognizes the Office of the National Security Adviser, raising questions about executive accountability and the concentration of security authority inside the presidency.
“The Constitution and existing statutes only establish the National Security Adviser,” said Professor Ifeoma Okafor, Senior Lecturer in Constitutional Law at the University of Lagos.
“What President Tinubu has done is create a parallel office by executive fiat, with powers and responsibilities entirely dependent on what the presidency delegates,” Okafor added.
Okafor explained that “this is legal, but it is not grounded in statutory authority, which raises questions about accountability and checks on executive discretion.”
Analysts See Political Power Consolidation
Some analysts believe the new office may function as a parallel structure capable of bypassing or weakening the influence of National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu while consolidating direct presidential control over security coordination.
“It appears the president is trying to centralize security oversight in a manner that allows him to coordinate responses directly while managing political alliances,” Okafor told TruthNigeria.
“This does not legally replace the NSA, but it effectively creates a secondary authority that could overshadow Ribadu’s role,” she explained.
Violence Expands Across Multiple Regions
The move comes as Nigeria faces expanding violence across multiple regions.
Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) continue attacks in the Northeast, including raids on villages, ambushes on military convoys, improvised explosive device attacks, and temporary occupations of rural communities.
Meanwhile, North-Central states including Plateau, Benue, Niger, Kaduna, Kwara, and Kogi witnessed repeated massacres of predominantly Christian farming communities, while the Northwest experienced escalating kidnappings and attacks by heavily armed militia factions, including some Fulani-aligned armed groups, and criminal kidnapping gangs.
TruthNigeria reporting and data from the Nigeria Terror Tracker show that armed groups increasingly exploit forests, cattle routes, and poorly policed rural corridors stretching from the Northwest into central Nigeria.
Security analysts say these corridors now support weapons movement, ransom negotiations, fuel supplies, and cross-state mobility for insurgent and kidnapping networks.
Team Tinubu will be hard pressed to argue for stellar successes in the face of the grim track record. Which doesn’t mean they won’t try to do just that.
Analysts Divide over Strategy: Was the Middle Belt Slighted?
Defense analysts argue the Homeland Security Adviser appointment exposes internal fractures inside Tinubu’s administration.
“This appointment confirms what we’ve long suspected,” said Dr. Samuel Aboderin, a Lagos-based defense analyst.
“The government has competing factions, each pursuing different priorities, and the presidency is trying to balance them while projecting authority,” Aboderin explained.
Under Chief of Defence Staff General Christopher Musa, Nigerian forces intensified operations against ISWAP strongholds in the Northeast and kidnapping gangs in parts of the Northwest.
Military offensives disrupted logistics corridors, targeted insurgent camps, and killed several field commanders linked to ISWAP and armed kidnapping groups.
Yet, analysts say the Middle Belt remained a killing field for two years under Gen. Musa’s administration as Chief of Defence Staff. Plateau, Benue, and southern Kaduna repeatedly suffered village burnings, mass killings, and kidnappings with few sustained security deployments.
“This was not a failure of bravery, but of political and strategic calculation,” said retired Major General Bibi Dikiyayi, a Yenagoa-based security consultant and strategist at the African Security Institute in Abuja.
“Resources were concentrated where the government could achieve quick wins, while the Middle Belt suffered”, Dikiyayi explained.
Dikiyayi added that, “It reinforces the perception that the administration is selectively responsive to insecurity.”
Enter AFRICOM
By all accounts it helped that U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) expanded battlefield intelligence-sharing, surveillance coordination, and counterterrorism support targeting Boko Haram and ISWAP logistics corridors.
Analysts caution, however, that foreign military cooperation cannot compensate for weak policing, corruption, rural governance failures, and the soaring kidnapping industry across northern Nigeria.
Kidnapping Fuels Armed Groups
Security researchers and negotiators say ransom systems now function as parallel economies in parts of northern Nigeria, financing weapons purchases, recruitment, informant networks, fuel supplies, and logistics for armed groups.
Security analysts also say kidnapping negotiations increasingly rely on informal intermediaries, community contacts, and clandestine ransom brokers operating between armed groups, families, and local officials.
Analysts warn that negotiated releases involving kidnapped soldiers and civilians risk creating a cycle in which insurgents and armed gangs benefit financially from repeated abductions.
The report says Nigeria’s defense budget reached roughly $5 billion, yet many rural communities remain effectively unprotected.
Critics argue that the gap between official rhetoric and conditions on the ground damages public confidence and deepens international skepticism.
“When figures are dismissed as exaggerations, the presidency looks disconnected,” said Dr. Isaac Ajayi, an Abuja-based defense policy consultant.
“It’s not only a failure in communication – it’s a governance deficit that feeds both domestic and Western skepticism,” Ajayi concluded.
Economic hardship has intensified pressure on the administration.
Since Tinubu assumed office, the naira sharply depreciated while fuel prices increased nearly fourfold following subsidy removals and currency reforms.
Economists and political analysts warn that worsening inflation, unemployment, and insecurity together create conditions historically associated with rising political instability and anti-government anger.
Homeland Security Office As Political Shield
In summary, Tinubu’s Homeland Security Adviser initiative reflects a government attempting to navigate simultaneous insurgency, organized kidnapping, economic distress, political fragmentation, and mounting international scrutiny.
Colonel Busari Adekan, a retired military intelligence officer and security consultant based in Ibadan, argued that “while terrorism dominates headlines, unpoliced massacres, kidnappings, and economic hardship pose an even greater threat to the president’s political survival.”
“In this context, the office of Homeland Security may function less as a policy innovation and more as a political shield, a mechanism to consolidate authority, centralize security coordination, and project competence ahead of the 2027 polls,” Adekan explained.
Onibiyo Segun reports on terrorism and conflict for TruthNigeria.
