By Juba Global News Network
Abuja, December 5, 2025

In a development that’s sent shockwaves through Nigeria’s political circles, Defence Minister Mohammed Badaru Abubakar handed in his resignation on Wednesday evening, officially blaming “personal health reasons.” President Bola Tinubu didn’t wait long to accept Badaru’s resignation, quickly tapping his longtime confidant and former Zamfara governor, Bello Matawalle, to fill the role. The timing, though, isn’t fooling many people.

Badaru’s departure lands smack in the middle of the country’s most relentless wave of mass abductions. Just these past ten days:

• On December 1, 87 students snatched from a government secondary school in Kaduna State
• December 3 saw 14 passengers abducted off a luxury bus on the Abuja-Kaduna highway
• Between December 4–5, 41 farmers and travelers were kidnapped in separate incidents in Katsina and Sokoto

Today, more than 1,400 Nigerians are being held for ransom in the northwest and north-central regions alone—the highest tally the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) has ever recorded. And honestly? That number’s likely an understatement.

A Minister Cornered

Badaru, a typically reserved businessman-turned-politician from Jigawa State, has spent much of 2025 bouncing between Abuja, the United Nations General Assembly, and military command outposts in Maiduguri, Sokoto, and Birnin Gwari. But confidence in his leadership? It’s been slipping for months. Back in September, the House of Representatives dragged him in for questioning after bandits overran a military base in Zurmi, Zamfara, killing 13 soldiers. Then in October, the Senate delivered a no-confidence vote in the aftermath of 150 schoolchildren being abducted in Niger State—an ordeal that ended only after what’s rumored to be a ₦1 billion ransom payout.

Behind closed doors, governors from the hardest-hit states haven’t been shy about demanding Badaru’s ouster. A leaked memo from the Nigeria Governors’ Forum dated November 18 didn’t mince words, calling the security setup “completely broken” and accusing the Ministry of Defence of “strategic inertia.” Insiders at the Presidential Villa say President Tinubu actually asked Badaru to step aside last week, but the minister held out, hoping for some dramatic turnaround from ongoing operations.

The Old Problem’s New Face

Bello Matawalle, stepping in as the new minister, isn’t exactly a stranger to this crisis. During his stint as Zamfara governor (2019–2023), he made headlines with his controversial approach: negotiating with bandit leaders, offering amnesty, and even rolling out cash-for-arms deals that, critics argue, only empowered criminal gangs. In fact, SBM Intelligence reports kidnappings in Zamfara shot up by 300% while Matawalle was in charge. Still, his appointment is being painted as bringing “local knowledge” and renewed “political will” to a fight the regular military seems to be losing.

Security experts? They’re split. “Matawalle knows the ground, knows the players,” says Dr. Murtala Rufa’i of Usmanu Danfodiyo University. “But he also made it seem normal for bandits to get talked to instead of defeated.” Others worry his return basically admits that big chunks of rural Nigeria have turned into permanent no-go zones, ruled by the logic of ransom.

A Nation Held Hostage

The statistics are staggering. Since President Tinubu took office in May 2023, at least 3,620 civilians have been swept up in mass kidnappings (each incident involving 10 or more people), according to figures gathered by Beacon Security Consulting. In 2025 alone, ransom payments are conservatively pegged at ₦12 billion ($7.8 million). For many families, “kidnap savings” have become a regular budget item—just like setting aside money for school fees.

The criminal tactics have become bolder. Bandits, sometimes moving in groups of up to 300, now wield RPGs and anti-aircraft guns strapped to pickup trucks. They storm military checkpoints, record their attacks to spread on social media, and vanish into the dense Kamuku, Kuyambana, and Rugu forests that sprawl across six states. The Nigerian Air Force claims airstrikes have killed “hundreds,” but ground forces rarely stick around long enough to stop the bandits from coming back.

Perhaps most troubling is the dramatic erosion of public trust. In a November 2025 NOI Polls survey, 78% of people in the northwest said they’d rather pay a ransom than report a kidnapping to the authorities. Some vigilante groups—sometimes backed by state governments—have started executing captured bandits on camera, chipping away even more at the government’s control over violence.

What’s Next?

Matawalle’s opening remarks after being sworn in didn’t pull any punches: “We’ll use both kinetic and non-kinetic means. Some of these boys, you can still talk sense into them.” He’s pledged to reopen dialogue that Badaru had shut down and to deploy another 20,000 “special agro-rangers” to try to safeguard farming communities.

But the obstacles? They’re huge. Security funding remains a black box—the 2025 defence budget is ₦4.9 trillion ($3.2 billion), the biggest in Nigeria’s history, but frontline soldiers still complain about not getting paid or having to make do with outdated equipment. Cooperation between the military, police, and Department of State Services is, frankly, a mess. And—maybe most worrying—nobody seems willing to go after the connections between certain northern elites and the bandit kingpins.

While families in Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, and elsewhere agonize, waiting for word about kidnapped loved ones, one thing’s obvious: swapping out a single minister—however high-profile—won’t undo ten years of government retreat. To be blunt, Nigeria isn’t just struggling to keep its citizens safe. In huge stretches of the northwest and north-central, the state has, for all intents and purposes, stopped existing.

For parents waiting outside empty schools and villagers camping out in their fields to protect the harvest, the real question isn’t who’s running the Defence Ministry anymore. It’s whether Nigeria actually has the means—or maybe even the desire—to reclaim its land from men with guns and motorbikes. And for now, that answer hangs out there, as scary and uncertain as ever.

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