Monday 06 April, 2026

Nigeria spent N33 trillion on security since 2012. Here's what Nigerians got.

Between 2012 and 2026, Nigeria allocated approximately N33 trillion to defence and security. That's the number. Take a moment with it.

N33 trillion. Fourteen years. And in the first 41 days of 2026 alone, at least 1,091 Nigerians died in violent attacks. Over 3.7 million people are living in displacement camps. More than 100,000 killed in violent incidents since 2012. Twenty-eight more added to the count on Palm Sunday in Jos.

The spending went up every year. The safety didn't follow.

The mechanism behind this gap isn't mysterious. Nigeria's defence budget grew from N965 billion in 2020 to N6.57 trillion in 2025. But security analysts note that growth is concentrated in personnel costs and recurrent expenditure, not in intelligence infrastructure, community engagement, or the supply chain systems that sustain gains after an operation ends. You can increase a budget without changing what the budget actually buys. Nigeria has been doing exactly that.

The chief of defence staff said it himself. General Oluyede said the armed forces cannot address Nigeria's security challenges alone. Police, state security, and community institutions need strengthening before military gains can be held. He's describing a structural problem. It's the same structural problem that produced the Palm Sunday massacre in Jos. The army arrived at Angwan Rukuba at 8:45pm, 75 minutes after the gunmen had already left.

Nigeria has been announcing operations for decades. Operation Lafiya Dole. Herdsmen crackdown taskforces. Banditry responses in the northwest. Each one came with a press conference and a deployment announcement. Each one produced a period of reduced attacks followed by a return to the same pattern. The problem has never been the absence of operations. It's been the absence of what comes after them.

The farmer in Plateau State who hasn't returned to his land in three planting seasons. The teacher in Borno whose school has reopened and closed four times in two years. The family in a Maiduguri displacement camp that arrived in 2020 and is still there. Nigeria has spent N33 trillion on security. These are the people who should have the most to show for it.

The historical echo is not distant. In 2014, after the Chibok abduction, Nigeria announced a comprehensive counter-insurgency surge. Billions were allocated. International partners were engaged. Operations were named and launched. Over 100,000 Nigerians have been killed in violent incidents since 2012. The displacement figures kept climbing. The difference between then and now is not the pattern. It's the price tag on the pattern.

Rhoda Favour Ayuba held her dead son in a video that spread across every WhatsApp group in Nigeria last week. Her son's name has not been officially released.