Unidentified people attacked a community in Plateau State, Nigeria’s north central region, in mid-April, killing at least 52 residents. A similar attack in the same state claimed 48 lives earlier in the month.
In neighbouring Benue State, north central Nigeria, unnamed assailants attacked two communities in March, killing at least five people. Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu described the Plateau violence as rooted in misunderstandings between different ethnic and religious groups.
Nigeria’s spiralling insecurity is sometimes blamed on armed herders, at other times on bandits or kidnappers. Then there are extremist groups like Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province and Lakurawa, operating mostly in northern Nigeria. In the southern part of the country, there are also armed groups like the Indigenous People of Biafra.
At The Conversation Africa, we have been working with academic experts to gain insights into the various actors involved in Nigeria’s security challenge, their motivations and why efforts to rein them in haven’t succeeded. Here are six essential reads on Nigeria’s struggle with insecurity.
At the centre of the most recent killings in Nigeria is the country’s north central region. Consisting of the capital city, Abuja, and six other states, the region is home to several minority ethnic groups. More than 200 languages are spoken there.
As Oluwole Ojewale explains, the region is vulnerable to various forms of conflict. It arises between ethnic and religious groups; people who trace their ancestry to a state and more recent residents; people who keep cattle and those who farm crops.
Read more: What's driving violence in Nigeria's north central region
Across the north central and north west regions of Nigeria, bandits stoke violence and insecurity.
They act in groups with varying operational and technical capabilities and do not have any central authority. Their main activities are cattle rustling, kidnapping civilians for ransom, armed attacks and community invasion. Over the years, the government has tried numerous military and non-military strategies to stamp out bandits. Sallek Yaks Musa unpacks why at least five different strategies have failed.
Read more: Nigeria's banditry: why 5 government strategies have failed
In 2024, the Nigerian army spoke of attacks on the Niger-Nigeria border as being carried out by a new terrorist group. According to the military, the new group, identified as Lakurawa, is affiliated to terrorists in the Sahel, particularly from Mali and Niger Republic.
The picture painted by the military suggests that the group emerged as a result of the turmoil following recent coups in the Sahel region. But John Sunday Ojo and Ezenwa E. Olumba argue that the group isn’t new. It’s been operating along the Nigeria-Niger border since 1999, an indication of the region’s growing ungoverned spaces.
Read more: Nigeria's terror group Lakurawa is nothing new -- it exists because of government's failure: analysts
Until recent years, large bandit and terror attacks were relatively rare in Lagos and other parts of the south-west region of Nigeria. Lately, crimes that were previously associated with the northern region appear to be spreading to the south-west. Adewumi Badiora outlines why Lagos may be a target and what to do about it.
Read more: Terror attacks and kidnappings spread in Nigeria: why Lagos could be a target
In the midst of its struggle with insecurity, Nigeria was hit by the United States decision to cut international aid funding. Over the years, the US has granted hundreds of millions of dollars as security assistance to Nigeria, as part of a broader partnership to promote regional security and stability.
Security scholar Al Chukwuma Okoli describes how the cuts will affect Nigeria in many ways, including the fight against terror groups.
Read more: US funding cuts may affect Nigeria's fight against terrorism. Here's how
While the Nigerian government struggles with cuts to aid funding, bandits are colluding with elites to mine gold illegally and undermine peace.
Oluwole Ojewale analyses how Nigerian elites weaponised access to mineral resources and the impact this has on violence in the north west region.
Read more: Nigeria's illegal gold trade – elites and bandits are working together