Ninety Days to Name the Enemy

Abuja Works ‘Threat Assessment’  in Face of Election

By Mike Odeh James 

 (Abuja)  Nigeria’s president has given his military and intelligence chiefs 90 days to agree on what is actually killing his citizens.

 At the Federal Executive Council meeting on August 19, 2026, President Bola Tinubu ordered the immediate preparation of a National Threat Assessment and a rolling five‑year Strategic Defence Operations Plan. Link Operational requirements had been handled piecemeal, he said, without a shared assessment or medium‑term plan – a gap he blamed for weak coordination and wasted resources.

The timing matters more than the machinery. The order came seven days after Nigeria’s national security adviser sat across a table in Washington from American officials who had come to discuss one subject: the killing of Christians in the Middle Belt.

The Same Men, Two Rooms

The 11‑member drafting committee is coordinated by Major General Adeyinka Famadewa, the president’s Special Adviser on Homeland Security. It seats National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu, Defence Minister Gen. Christopher Musa, the service chiefs, and the directors‑general of the DSS and NIA. Ribadu led Nigeria’s delegation to the second session of the US‑Nigeria Joint Working Group in Washington on August 12, 2026, hosted by Under Secretary Allison Hooker. Musa was in the room. Both now sit on the committee drafting the assessment.

The State Department listed three priorities: protecting Christian communities in the Middle Belt, holding perpetrators accountable through stronger courts, and military‑to‑military cooperation. American officials credited the prosecution of hundreds of Boko Haram and ISWAP suspects, and flagged civilian deaths and opaque humanitarian spending. Nigeria has been a Country of Particular Concern since October 31, 2025. 

On August 19 – the same day Tinubu signed the directive – Rep. Riley Moore posted that the designation cannot come off while radical Islamic terrorists continue the violence, and that Abuja must meet the commitments it made.

The Ledger the Assessment Must Reckon With

Three days before the directive, on August 16, 2026, Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) fighters swept Mbaterem and neighbouring villages in Benue’s Ukum county. Ezra Nyiyongo of the Benue State Assembly put the dead above 10; Rep. Solomon Wombo said 22 bodies had been recovered.  Twenty wounded were treated; four were amputees, two lost both hands. One girl, medically cleared, was held at a clinic over an unpaid bill until a US charity settled it on August 19.

On the night of August 17–18, Fulani Terrorists hit three Christian villages south of Jos within the same hour – Rim in Riyom, and Chakfem and Bin Mper in Mangu. Twenty‑seven died, four of them civilian guards. A guard leader shot in the leg at Bin Mper learned while under treatment that his wife and three children were dead. Survivors said soldiers garrisoned three miles away did not answer calls during a two‑hour firefight. 

“There is a compromise somewhere, and there has to be a thorough independent investigation,” Matthew Sylvanus Kwarpo, who represents Mangu in the Plateau State Assembly, told TruthNigeria. Intelligence naming Kombun district as a target had reached the military beforehand, he said. No inquiry was ordered; the army moved a tactical headquarters to Mangu on August 20. 

Nigerian Diaspora, Activists in U.S., Urge Quick Intervention

“Job One for the Nigerian government is to reverse course on allowing local police and military to stand down when Christians are being attacked, ” says Equipping the Persecuted (ETP) founder Judd Saul. “Commanders who do so should be sacked publicly.”

“Actions speak louder than words, “ Saul continued in a text. “The solution is simple. Nigeria needs to enforce the laws that it already has, and they need to apply those laws to the terrorists that are breaking them.”

“While a unified, strategic defense framework is an essential step toward restoring stability, vulnerable rural communities—particularly Christian farming populations across the Middle Belt—are facing an active, daily humanitarian crisis that requires immediate, decisive field intervention,” wrote Stephen Osemweige, spokesman for the Save-Nigeria diaspora group based in Minnesota. “Time is of the essence, as administrative timelines must be matched with urgent, life-saving protection on the ground.

 “The devastating Monday night attack in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State, which claimed the lives of approximately 28 innocent citizens—mostly women and children killed in their sleep—underscores the critical severity of the situation” Osemweige continued.

“Identifying security threats through policy assessments must occur concurrently with swift tactical operations to apprehend perpetrators, dismantle known terrorist networks, and prevent further bloodshed,” he wrote.  

The Irony in the Room

Musa, a son of the Middle Belt from Zangon Kataf, received regional appeals to treat the killings as systematic attacks on Christian farming communities weeks before the committee formed. He now sits on the body that will decide whether to name the enemy.

Tinubu cited the Oriire county rescue in Oyo State as evidence of coordination. Thirty‑nine pupils and seven teachers were seized on May 15, 2026, from three schools; 44 were recovered on July 10 after 56 days in an operation across the Old Oyo National Park, Link one teacher having been beheaded before it ran.

No Middle Belt equivalent exists. Nine suspects were arraigned in February 2026 over the Yelwata massacre in Guma county and pleaded not guilty. Beyond that file, prosecutions for FEM attacks are close to nonexistent – no post‑mortems, no forensics, no camps dismantled.

Washington’s Reading

Scott Morgan, a Washington‑based Africa analyst, told TruthNigeria the directive shows “how dysfunctional the Nigerian security sources are, especially when it pertains to all aspects of military planning.” He said Abuja appears to be managing the threat assessment as election platform material ahead of 2027. If Fulani Terrorists are properly named, he added, the practical change would be American targeting of their funding inside and outside Nigeria,” according to Morgan.

Mike Odeh James is an award winning journalist and he writes for TruthNigeria. 

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