WHITHER KOGI GOVERNMENT IN THE SECURITY FLARES IN KOGI WEST?
By Tunde Olusunle
Frequent invasion of unsuspecting communities; random abductions-for-ransom and killings in Kogi West Senatorial Zone compel the question: Exactly what role is the administration of Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo playing in the mitigation of insecurity in the district? In the age of the internet, information processing and dissemination is real-time.
Happenings in Sokoto in the North West; Borno in the North East; Kwara in the North Central; Oyo in the South West; Edo in the South South and Enugu in the South East are relayed via terrestrial channels, instantaneously and the world is aware and abreast by the minute. Responsive governments swing into action immediately tracking the criminals and dialoguing with them with the aim of securing the safe release of victims.
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Apart from their well-earned prominence in the media owing to their positive, productive and impactful service to their constituents, Governors Baba Gana Zulum of Borno; Umaru Bago of Niger, and Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq of Kwara states have been seen on several occasions, receiving freed abductees. The victims of the gunmen attack on the Christ Apostolic Church, (CAC), Eruku, Kwara State, November 19, 2025, were released to Governor Abdulrasaq Sunday November 23, 2025. It is a measure of the direct involvement of the Kebbi State Government in the management of the kidnapping on November 19, 2025, of 25 students from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, (GGCSS), in Maga, Kebbi State, that Governor Nasir Idris frontally challenged the security sector for ignoring the actionable intelligence which he provided well ahead of the invasion of the school.
The victims of the abduction were released November 26, 2025, following the direct intervention of President Bola Tinubu who dispatched the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle to Kebbi State immediately after the incident, to lead the rescue operation.
The 315 schoolchildren who were taken by hoodlums from St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, Friday November 21, 2025, were released in batches to Governor Umaru Bago, with the last group gaining their freedom on Monday December 29, 2025. All of these attest to the genuine concern of the leaderships of the states under reference and the federal government, for safety of their citizens, where the guarantee of the safety and security of the citizenry is the foremost responsibility of leadership.
It is common knowledge that Kogi West has been the unfortunate hotbed of a motley of criminal activities. The wilful invasion of settlements and communities by vagrants; the audacious blockage of roads and highways in the district; attacks and kidnappings from homes, farms and churches, have become dangerously recurrent. Monday June 16, 2025, 72-year old farmer and Chairman of the Kogi State Poultry Farmers Association, Samuel Ajayi Bello, was kidnapped from his farm in Ponyan, Yagba East local government area. Chief Ajayi a diabetic, who was released several weeks after upon the payment of a hefty ransom, was denied access to his medications while in extended captivity. Sadly, he had one of his legs amputated after the horrific incident, no thanks to gangrenous infection. Tuesday October 21, 2025, Moses Tuesday Omokore, younger brother of the business mogul, Jide Omokore and his wife were abducted from their home in Idofin, Isanlu, Yagba East council area and a N100million placed on them.
Weeks after the Eruku incident, terrorists attacked the Cherubim and Seraphim Church in Ejiba, Yagba West local government area Sunday November 30, 2025, and took with them the Pastor, his wife and some parishioners. Sunday December 14, 2025, armed men on motorcycles violated the Evangelical Church Winning All, (ECWA) in Aiyetoro-Kiri community in Kabba-Bunu council area and took at least 30 residents of the sleepy settlement with them. Videos of the victims of the Aiyetoro-Kiri incident were made by their captors who kept them under very inhuman conditions. The hoodlums initially pursued the hard-line that they would only negotiate the release of their victims with the state government. The trademark insensitivity and nonchalance of the Kogi State Government, however, compelled the kidnappers to negotiate with community representatives. Out of “magnanimity,” they have dropped their demands to N20million. The Bunu Development Association, (BDA), recently told newsmen in Lokoja the Kogi State capital, that 21 villages in Bunuland had been sacked by marauders; 30 residents killed and 50 people still in captivity, following accentuated terrorism in recent months.
In all of these incidents, the response of the Kogi State Government has been at best tepid, if not totally unavailable. True, Ododo paid a fleeting visit to Isanlu-Esa in Yagba West on Monday October 6, 2025 following the sacking of Okunran, Okoloke and Isanlu-Esa communities by kidnappers and killers. He was indeed pictured in a military camouflage even as he promised that his administration would be ruthless with criminals. That so much evil, so much trepidation, sorrow, tears and blood have been visited on Kogi West in the aftermath of Ododo’s whistle-stop in Yagbaland attests to the ineffectuality of the battle-cry issued by Governor Ododo on that visit, three months ago now. The people have been practically left helpless and hapless, a situation which continues to task the resources of elected representatives of the zone and well-meaning, well to do individuals.
Following the abductions of the traditional ruler of Okoloke in Yagba West, Oba Dada Ogunyanda, Thursday May 15, 2025, and Chief Ajayi Bello, weeks later, Sunday Karimi, Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial Zone, and Leke Abejide, Member Representing Yagba federal constituency in the House of Representatives, were among those contacted to crowd-fund the ransom demands. Oba Ogunyanda for example was only released upon the payment of a N20million ransom, Karimi and Abejide being substantial contributors to the effort. Karimi and Duro Meseko, Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), who is from Bunuland in Kabba-Bunu council area, have been contacted to support efforts being polled for the release of the Aiyetoro-Kiri captives.
As Member Representing Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu federal constituency in the House of Representatives years ago, Tajudeen Yusuf it was who paid the bulk of the ransom demanded by the abductors of the man who would later succeed him, Salman Idris. Yahaya Bello was the sitting governor of Kogi State and was reportedly nonplussed and totally unconcerned by the incident. The pattern has remained the same as bloodhounds continue to cash in on the vulnerability of local communities, bleeding the resources of the public-spirited. Criminality has become a thriving enterprise in the traditionally clement and welcoming Kogi West.
With so much fiscal exertion repeatedly devolving on private individuals and the personal resources of a handful of public officers, it becomes imperative to interrogate the depth of the commitment of the Kogi State Government to mitigating insecurity in Kogi West. Recent media reports have indeed pointedly accused a former governor of the state as being the precipitator of insecurity in Kogi West, arising from his involvement in illegal mining activities in the mineral-rich zone. The incumbent governor is said to be incapable of any security containment strategy for the troubled senatorial district because he is a pliant, whimpering beneficiary of his predecessor who is incapable of dissent in any way. Except for the visible initiatives of Karimi, Abejide and specific communities, there seems to be no visible plan, no discernible strategy to restore order and sanity to the troubled Kogi West.
Senator Sunday Karimi, (right), during a recent visit to the Forward Operating Base of the Nigerian Army in Egbe to check on the welfare of the troops
Karimi in October 2024, completed the development of a Forward Operating Base, (FOB), domiciled in Egbe, Yagba West, capable of accommodating 100 troops, and provided operational vehicles. The complex was commissioned by a representative of the erstwhile Chief of Army Staff, the late Lt. Gen Taoreed Lagbaja. Abejide recently launched an *Operation No Mercy* which is made up of trained vigilantes who will complement the efforts of existing security outfits. Their area of responsibility, (AOR), is Yagbaland, made up of Mopamuro, Yagba East and Yagba West councils. Clearly, these lawmakers are doing beyond their briefs to make up for lacunas precipitated by chronic state failure.
With so much resources accruing to the Kogi State Government from the federation account as statutory allocation; value added tax, (VAT); ecological funds; excess crude and indeed 13 percent derivation for oil producing state, governance ineptitude in the state is inexplicable. It is a total shame if a state which has produced a Chief of Defence Staff, (CDS); three Chiefs of Army Staff, (COAS), including the incumbent; two Chiefs of Air Staff, (CAS); one Chief of Naval Staff, (CNS); one Inspector-General of Police, (IGP) and two Chiefs of Defence Intelligence, (CDI), cannot develop a template to manage seething insecurity in one of its districts. It is evidence of glaring lack of capacity and sheer incompetence. The people of Kogi West may be inclined to believe the conspiracy theory in the security unsettledness in the zone as defined by the state government’s continuing inertia. Except the government acts swiftly to take charge of the drift.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja
(DEMOCRACY NEWSLINE NEWSPAPER, JANUARY 1ST 2026)
