Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed has identified alienation, weak institutions, and governance failures as central drivers of protracted violence in northern Nigeria.
The former spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum spoke during an interview on PAPShow on Sunday, March 1, 2026, where he examined the deeper roots of insecurity. “Well, the government hasn’t. There are a lot of offers of opinion. A huge number of people have become alienated,” he said.
He explained that some groups felt spiritually marginalized and responded violently. “There are people who are alienated because they believe the state doesn’t address their spiritual concerns. And they’ve taken up arms in order to fight it. We are talking about the early Boko Haram, now ISWAP. Yeah, theological,” he stated.
Baba-Ahmed added that other segments of society were driven by grievance and lack of alternatives. “Then you had a huge number of people who were aggrieved and had nowhere to turn,” he said.
He pointed to long-standing pastoral systems disrupted by structural changes. “These were largely nomads, people who for centuries had had a system that allowed them to coexist with farmers. Suddenly now, the weakening of state institutions, the corruption that exists in governance, the failure to adequately think ahead and plan, bulging population of humans and cattle, and the manner in which the Nigerian state is structured has created massive bottlenecks around the resolution of these problems,” he explained.
According to him, mobility restrictions and social tensions escalated conflicts involving pastoral communities. “So essentially just lawful, ordinary Fulani people moving their cattle up and down the country seasonally became targets. They couldn’t pass through, they were not allowed to go to markets or go to hospitals. They started fighting,” Baba-Ahmed said.See_More…