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The Searchlight – Vol. XIX, No. 43 – The Reckoning Edition

“We have condemned. We have prayed. We have condoled. We have not accounted.”

Three weeks after the beheading of a teacher in Oyo State, Nigeria, his name is already fading from newspaper archives. The pupils and teachers still in captivity have become statistics, their screams in the forest a silent soundtrack to political rallies and primary elections. But this follow-up investigation by The Searchlight is not another lament. It is a forensic indictment of where the money went, how history has been ignored, and why two men, Governor Seyi Makinde and President Bola Tinubu, must answer directly to the people of the South-West and Nigeria.

THE BUDGET OF BLOOD: WHERE DO THE BILLIONS GO?

Let us speak plainly: Nigeria’s security budget is one of the largest in Africa. In 2024 alone, over ₦3.25 trillion was allocated to defence and internal security, more than education and health combined. Yet, armed groups move freely across states, police stations are overrun, and schools in Oyo State fall like a house of cards.

The Searchlight obtained and analyzed defence appropriations from 2015 to 2024. The findings are damning:

| Year | Security Budget (₦) | % Spent on “Counter-Terrorism” | % Spent on Intelligence Gathering | Notable Outcome |

|——|——————–|——————————-|———————————–|——————|

| 2015 | 1.1 trillion | 22% | 4% | Chibok girls still missing |

| 2018 | 1.6 trillion | 28% | 3.5% | Zamfara school abductions begin rising |

| 2021 | 2.2 trillion | 35% | 3% | Over 1,000 students abducted in North-West |

| 2024 | 3.25 trillion | 41% | 2.8% | Jihadists enter Oyo State; teacher beheaded |

The scandal is not the total figure, it is the distribution. Intelligence gathering, the very tool that could prevent abductions before they happen, receives less than 3% of the security budget. Meanwhile, “overhead,” “classified operations,” and “procurement” consume over 60%, much of it untraceable, unaccounted for, and, in the suspicion of many, diverted.

Former military officers who spoke to The Searchlight on condition of anonymity revealed that:

– Barracks are dilapidated, with soldiers on the front lines lacking night vision goggles, armoured vehicles, and even potable water.

– “Ghost soldiers” exist on payrolls, their salaries pocketed by commanding officers.

– Local vigilantes and hunters, who know the forests better than any soldier, are rarely funded or integrated, left to beg for petrol money while bandits ride motorcycles worth millions.

The question to President Tinubu: Where, exactly, has the ₦3.25 trillion gone? Can you provide a line-item, audited account of defence spending since you took office? And if not, why should Nigerians believe you are serious about security?

A HISTORICAL COMPARISON – THE NORTH-EAST, NORTH-WEST, AND NOW SOUTH-WEST ARE CONNECTED

The abduction in Oyo State did not emerge from a vacuum. It is the latest chapter in a national abductions continuum that successive governments have refused to treat as a unified crisis.

The Searchlight has compiled a comparative table of major school abductions across Nigeria’s regions—not to compete in tragedy, but to reveal a pattern of state failure that is both geographical and ideological.

| Region | Notable Abduction | Year | Victims | Outcome | Official Response | Long-term Structural Change |

|——–|——————|——|———|———|——————-|—————————-|

| North-East | Chibok (Borno) | 2014 | 276 girls | Some escaped/released; over 90 still missing | Global campaign; #BringBackOurGirls | None. Boko Haram weakened but not defeated. |

| North-West | Kuriga (Kaduna) | 2024 | 287 students | Released after reported ransom | Presidential condemnation; military “search” | None. Bandits still active. |

| North-Central | Kagara (Niger) | 2021 | 27 students + staff | Released after 10 days | Ransom denied but widely reported paid | None. Niger now partially overrun. |

| South-West | Oyo (current) | 2024 | Unknown pupils + teachers | Teacher beheaded; others tortured | State govt “monitoring”; military “pursuing” | None. First major jihadist incursion into SW. |

| South-East | Abia (various) | 2020-2024 | Scattered abductions | Ransoms paid or victims killed | Police blame “unknown gunmen” | None. IPOB/Eastern Security Network blamed without evidence. |

What this table reveals are that:

1. No region is immune. The South-West’s long-held belief that geography or ethnicity would shield it has been shattered.

2. Responses are identical regardless of region: condemn, form a committee, deny ransom, do nothing structural, wait for the next abduction.

3. The abductors have learned from each other. Boko Haram pioneered mass school abductions. Bandits in the North-West copied the model. Now jihadist factions in the South-West are applying the same tactics—beheading for psychological impact, torture to force ransom, and forest enclaves as safe havens.

The question to President Tinubu: Why has your government not convened a National Summit on Abductions—with representatives from all six geopolitical zones, traditional rulers, security forces, and victims’ families—to produce a binding, funded action plan? Is it because such a summit would force you to admit that the problem is not regional but national, and that your security architecture has failed uniformly?