On a cold, brutal December week, Nigeria suffered two fresh reminders that the country is not yet safe. A suspected bomb exploded on a Zamfara highway, leaving travellers and communities in shock and mourning. Days earlier a blast ripped through a mosque in Maiduguri, Borno State, killing worshippers during evening prayers.
The sorrow, the anger, and the sense of national failure that followed were overwhelming. They prompted Peter Obi to issue a sharp public appeal titled A Call for National Responsibility. He asked for a reordering of priorities so that protecting life is once again the central duty of the state.
This brief is an investigative response to that appeal. It assembles what is known about the attacks. It places them in the context of evolving tactics and theatre wide insecurity. It examines the political and institutional failures that allow such violence to persist. It draws historical comparisons with past moments when state legitimacy frayed.
It closes with concrete recommendations. If adopted and implemented, these recommendations could reduce the frequency and scale of attacks. They could also start to restore public trust.
What happened and what we know
Reports from credible outlets and security statements indicate at least two separate incidents. These incidents occurred within hours of each other. They have rattled northern Nigeria.
A bomb exploded on a Zamfara highway in Maru Local Government Area, affecting travellers and vehicles and causing deaths and injuries. Local and national outlets reported fatalities, with initial counts varying as rescue and recovery continued.
In Maiduguri, Borno State, a bomb detonated during prayers at a mosque on 25 December 2025. Police said remnants of a suspected suicide vest were recovered. Initial reports indicated the death toll was five, with dozens injured.
The attack bears the hallmarks of militant groups that have intermittently used suicide bombings to sow terror in the northeast.
These incidents come against a background of persistent insecurity across multiple northern states.
The state house and federal agencies have acknowledged escalating threats. In recent days, there has been unprecedented external military activity. The United States is conducting strikes against targets described as Islamic State affiliated in the northwest.
The strikes were announced publicly and have been the subject of intense diplomatic and security debate.
The differing casualty figures in the immediate aftermath reflect the chaotic first hours of any mass casualty event. That confusion is itself telling.
A competent security architecture has systems for rapid casualty accounting, coordinated emergency medical response and clear public communication. The breakdown of those systems is a symptom of the deeper fragility Peter Obi appealed to address.
The changing tactics of violence
The attacks in Zamfara and Borno fit within a shifting constellation of violent tactics across the region. Banditry in the northwest has evolved from kidnappings and raids to the use of improvised explosive devices on highways.
In the northeast, militant groups have used suicide bombings in the past. Those incidents had declined until a recent resurgence. Observers note a worrying convergence of tactics that suggests tactical learning between criminal gangs and ideological insurgents.
For civilians, the practical effect is lethal. Highways that once connected markets and schools now carry the risk of ambush. Places of worship and other soft civilian targets have been attacked, amplifying the social trauma.
The use of explosives rather than solely guns multiplies casualties and complicates forensic and intelligence work. It also raises the possibility that these are not mere acts of opportunistic violence. Instead, they might be part of organised campaigns by groups adapting to pressure from security operations.
Who might be responsible and the danger of premature attribution
Attribution in the immediate aftermath of attacks is fraught. Authorities, analysts and foreign governments often assign responsibility quickly, sometimes for political reasons.
In Maiduguri the methods are consistent with factions historically linked to Boko Haram or the Islamic State West Africa Province. In Zamfara the use of roadside IEDs is often tied to criminal bandit networks who have increasingly militarised. But the lines can blur: allegiances shift, splinters form and opportunistic cells adopt the methods of others.
Journalists and analysts must thus avoid definitive public finger pointing until forensic and intelligence work confirms the perpetrators.
Premature ethnicisation of blame does more harm than good. When violence is framed as the product of a single ethnic community the result is not clarity but polarisation. That polarisation feeds cycles of retribution and further erodes national cohesion.
Political responsibility and the accountability deficit
Peter Obi’s statement is not merely rhetorical. It names failures that are obvious on the ground. The continued recurrence of mass casualty attacks despite repeated assurances by officials highlights an accountability deficit. There are three interlocking accountability failures that need scrutiny
These are not new problems. What is new is the degree to which ordinary citizens now expect, with justification, that the state will fail them. Public patience is exhausted. The legitimacy question that follows is existential for any state that relies on consent and the promise of protection.
Root causes beyond bullets and bombs
Violence flourishes where opportunity dies. Obi named poverty, unemployment and the collapse of local economies as root drivers.
That diagnosis is supported by broader evidence. Economic precarity creates incentives for recruitment into armed groups. Contested access to land and grazing routes fuels long running disputes.
Millions of Nigerians live with multidimensional poverty which undermines resilience and community capacity to absorb shocks.
Any serious security plan must thus be both kinetic and developmental. Military responses alone will not stem recruitment or end the massacre of civilians.
The recovery of local economies, targeted employment schemes, and emergency cash transfers are prevention measures. Repairing local service delivery also helps in reducing grievances. These actions deprive violent actors of recruitable populations.
International intervention and local sovereignty
The US strikes in the northwest have injected an international dimension into the crisis. US officials and the White House framed the strikes as targeting IS linked elements and as responses to transnational threats.
Those strikes raise thorny questions about sovereignty, the limits of external military help, and the domestic political narrative. International support can offer critical capabilities. Nevertheless, it must be embedded in Nigerian strategic leadership. It also requires clear legal frameworks and transparent accountability.
Otherwise external strikes risk fuelling nationalist backlash. They may also be used as shorthand by politicians. Some politicians prefer to outsource responsibility rather than reform domestic institutions.
The Nigerian state should insist on three safeguards whenever it coordinates with foreign militaries. First, clear legal authorisation and parliamentary oversight. Second, public reporting on objectives and outcomes.
Third, concurrent non kinetic investments in governance and local resilience. Tactical military effects without political solutions will simply reroute violence.
Historical parallels and lessons
There are uncomfortable historical parallels when national cohesion is strained and violence rises. The Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 1970 showed how governance failures and exclusion can escalate into existential conflict.
Elsewhere the fragmentation of Yugoslavia demonstrates how ethnicised narratives of state formation can be used to justify violence. The secession and conflict in Sudan reveal how these narratives can be used. Recent events in Ethiopia further illustrate the power of these narratives to legitimise the abandonment of minority rights.
Immediate improvements to emergency response. Establish rapid casualty counting, triage and trauma evacuation hubs along major routes and in identified hot spots. Train and equip local medical first responders. This reduces mortality and demonstrates state competence.
Intelligence fusion and community liaison. Create local fusion centres that integrate military, police and community leaders to translate human intelligence into operations. Protect informants and incentivise tips with witness protection and economic support.
Peter Obi’s plea is blunt and right. The protection of human life must be the state’s first duty. That duty is not achieved through slogans or occasional airstrikes alone. It requires institutional competence, political courage and a long term investment in the economies and dignity of communities across Nigeria. If leaders respond with competence, compassion, and accountability, then the tragedies of Zamfara and Maiduguri can be transformed. These tragedies can become pivot points that force reform. If they do not, the country risks further descent into cycles of violence and fragmentation.
Targeted economic interventions. Deploy conditional cash transfers, public works and market rehabilitation in high risk communities. Job creation undermines recruitment by removing economic desperation.
Transparent accountability. Publish an independent, time bound review of recent national security operations, with public recommendations and oversight. Where failings are exposed there must be personnel and institutional reform not just press statements.
Legal clarity on foreign operations. Any foreign military support must be debated and authorised through proper channels and paired with civilian development commitments.
National narrative. Political leaders across the spectrum must resist ethnicising language. Statesmanship requires framing security as a common good and prioritising social cohesion.
The lesson is consistent. When state formation or the allocation of political and economic rights is framed through a narrow ethnic lens, exclusion becomes inevitable. This often leads to violence.
Conversely, inclusive narratives that tie rights to citizenship and shared institutions reduce the political utility of violence. This is the heart of Peter Obi’s call for a reassertion of national responsibility.
The risk of ethnicising state formation now
Nigeria is a federal state with deep ethnic, religious and regional diversity. Debates on state restructuring, resource control and political devolution are legitimate. But when those debates are conducted in exclusionary, securitised or triumphalist terms they enable violent actors.
Ethnicising the discourse over who belongs and who does not turns legitimate political arguments into existential contests. This provides recruits with propaganda that violence is a defence of group survival.
Those who propose major constitutional or territorial change must thus avoid demonising whole communities. They must pair any structural proposals with guarantees of minority rights and robust transitional arrangements.
Otherwise, the short term political gains of stirring identity politics will be limited. The long term costs will be measured in blood. They will also lead to fragmentation.
What must change now
The scale of the problem requires a multi layered national response. Below are concrete, urgent steps that flow from the findings above
Final reckoning
This paper has assembled the immediate facts and the longer term analysis that should guide action. The families now grieving deserve nothing less than a national project that treats life as the highest value. The tests are operational, political and moral. The country must pass them.
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