How Borgu forest belt, emerging terrorism epicentre, threatens Nigeria’s physical, food security

…Threats may spread to North-Central, North-West, South-West soon

Nigeria’s food-security ambitions are facing a new and increasingly complex threat as armed groups expand their operations into some of the country’s most important agricultural belts, raising concerns that the centre of gravity of terrorism and organised rural violence may be shifting gradually from the traditional strongholds of Sambisa Forest and the Lake Chad basin in Borno State towards the vast Borgu forest belt in Niger State, adjoining areas of North-Central and North-West Nigeria.

Borgu is the largest Local Government Area in Niger State in terms of landmass, which was historically part of Kwara State until it was carved out of Old Kwara State and domiciled in Niger State based on the State creation of August 27, 1991. It’s also an international border area with the Republic of Benin. It connects South-West through Kwara and Oyo States; North-Central through Niger and Kwara States; and North-West through Agwara Local Government Area of Kebbi State.

The emerging pattern is significant because the new areas under pressure are not merely remote security theatres. They are home to farming communities that supply food to major markets across Nigeria and lie along important corridors linking the North-West, North-Central and southern parts of the country.

The latest incident in Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State has provided one of the clearest indications yet of how the security map is changing.

On August 21, suspected terrorists invaded communities around Dekara District in Borgu, attacking Gidan-Zana and Kpenya villages before abducting worshippers at a mosque during Friday prayers. The Niger State Police Command confirmed the attack, saying an unspecified number of people were taken while others escaped into a nearby forest. Joint security teams were subsequently deployed for assessment and rescue operations.

The scale of the abduction remains uncertain. While police have not confirmed the number of victims, a video circulated on social media appeared to show a large group of captives. Reuters reported that residents estimated that about 600 people may have been abducted, although the exact number had not been independently verified.

President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday ordered an immediate rescue operation and directed Nigeria’s security and intelligence agencies to intensify efforts to locate and free those abducted.

For security analysts, however, the significance of the Borgu attacks goes beyond the immediate abduction.

The area’s geography is crucial.

Borgu contains extensive forests and rural settlements stretching towards the Kainji ecosystem and borders areas through which armed groups can potentially move between different states and across porous regional boundaries. The combination of forests, sparse settlements, weak security presence and agricultural communities creates conditions that can allow criminal and extremist networks to establish hideouts, supply routes and influence.

This is why the movement of armed groups towards the Niger-Kwara axis is raising questions about whether Nigeria is witnessing the emergence of another major security theatre.

For years, Sambisa Forest and the Lake Chad region of Borno have been synonymous with Nigeria’s insurgency crisis. Those areas remain important theatres of terrorism, but the expanding activities of armed groups in North-Central Nigeria suggest that the country can no longer treat terrorism as a predominantly North-East problem.

The development also creates a direct link between national security and food production.

Niger State is one of Nigeria’s major agricultural areas, while neighbouring Kwara, Benue, Plateau and parts of Kaduna are critical producers of grains, tubers, livestock and other food commodities. If armed groups establish sustained control over rural communities, the immediate consequence may be abductions and displacement, but the longer-term impact could be a reduction in agricultural output.

A farmer who cannot safely reach his farm cannot plant on schedule. A farmer who abandons his farm cannot harvest. And a trader who fears travelling through an insecure corridor cannot efficiently move food from production areas to consumption centres.

That chain of disruption could eventually appear in urban markets as higher prices and reduced supplies.

Read also: Troops arrest two terrorists, recover AK-47, other ammunition in Zamfara

From farms to forests

The danger is already evident in several food-producing states.

In Plateau State, recent attacks in Mangu Local Government Area have resulted in deaths, destruction of homes and damage to farmlands and stored agricultural produce. The Plateau State House of Assembly said more than 25 people were killed in recent attacks in Mangu, with several hectares of farmland and barns containing stored grains destroyed.

The economic consequence is particularly severe because agricultural production in affected communities is often the principal source of household income.

Benue faces a similar challenge. Repeated attacks on farming settlements have raised concerns over farmers’ ability to remain on their land during planting and harvesting periods. The state is one of Nigeria’s largest food-producing areas and supplies agricultural commodities to markets far beyond its borders.

Southern Kaduna is also under pressure, with farmers in areas including Kauru, Kubau, Kudan, Kajuru, Sanga and Kachia facing insecurity that restricts access to farmland.

In June, at least nine farmers were killed when bandits invaded farmlands in the Kujijiro area of Birnin Gwari, Kaduna State, while other residents were reportedly abducted.

Niger State itself has experienced similar pressure in Rafi Local Government Area, where attacks on farming communities have forced residents to abandon fields and disrupted agricultural activities.

Kwara is now emerging as another strategic concern because of the growing security pressure around the Niger-Kwara corridor and the Kainji ecosystem.

The European Union Agency for Asylum has identified Niger and Kwara among areas where groups including Mahmuda and Ansaru have been active, with reported activities including attacks, kidnapping, forced labour and illegal taxation. This indicates that the threat is not limited to conventional banditry for ransom but can involve systems of coercion that interfere directly with rural economic activity.

When armed groups impose illegal taxes on farmers or control access to farmland, markets and movement routes, they begin to perform functions normally associated with territorial control.

That is the point at which a security problem becomes an economic problem.

The Borgu warning

The August 21 attack is therefore more than another isolated mass abduction.

It occurred only days after President Tinubu ordered a comprehensive National Threat Assessment and a rolling five-year Strategic Defence Operations Plan to address Nigeria’s evolving security challenges.

The President’s Special Adviser on Homeland Security, Major General Adeyinka Famadewa, is coordinating the 11-member committee responsible for preparing the documents. The committee includes National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu, Defence Minister Christopher Musa, the service chiefs and heads of key intelligence agencies.

Tinubu gave the committee 90 days to submit the National Threat Assessment and Strategic Defence Operations Plan. The assessment is expected to identify the country’s principal threats, rank their urgency and establish operational objectives, while the defence plan will identify the forces, capabilities, equipment and resources required in each theatre.

The timing is critical.

The committee’s assessment will need to account for a security geography that is changing faster than traditional operational structures may recognise.

The question is no longer simply how to contain insurgency in Borno or banditry in parts of the North-West. It is whether armed groups are exploiting the forests and rural corridors of North-Central Nigeria to create new operational spaces.

The Borgu development suggests that possibility cannot be ignored.

Chris Kwaja, a professor and conflict researcher at Adamawa State University, argues that the expanding insecurity should be treated as a national economic and food-security crisis rather than only a military challenge.

The spread of violence across the North-East, North-West and North-Central regions increasingly connects security with agriculture, transportation, trade and rural livelihoods.

Yunusa Zakari Yau, executive director of the Centre for Information Technology and Development in Kano, has also stressed the importance of intelligence gathering, information sharing and technology in identifying emerging threats before they develop into major attacks.

This intelligence requirement is particularly important in Borgu and surrounding areas, where large forests and difficult terrain can make conventional policing difficult.

Food security cannot survive insecurity

The Federal Government has invested heavily in initiatives designed to increase domestic food production, including fertiliser distribution, irrigation development and agricultural support programmes.

Musa Illiyasu Kwankwaso, executive director of finance at the Hadejia-Jama’are River Basin Development Authority, has highlighted the importance of irrigation and other interventions in expanding agricultural production.

But there is an obvious contradiction.

Government can provide fertiliser, improved seeds and irrigation infrastructure, but these interventions cannot deliver their full economic value if farmers are afraid to enter their fields.

The same applies to agricultural investments. A new irrigation scheme is of limited value if surrounding communities are displaced. A storage facility cannot solve food shortages if insecurity prevents farmers from bringing produce to it. And improved roads cannot strengthen agricultural markets if armed groups control the routes.

The security of farms, therefore, must become part of Nigeria’s food-security strategy.

That means identifying critical farming communities, major food corridors, rural markets and irrigation schemes as national economic assets requiring sustained protection.

It also means tracking early signs of agricultural displacement.

When farmers begin abandoning farms, when markets close, when transporters stop using particular roads or when communities begin moving into safer locations, security agencies should treat those developments as indicators of an expanding threat rather than isolated local problems.

The cost of waiting could be substantial.

A prolonged withdrawal of farmers from productive land would reduce supply, increase pressure on food prices and deepen household hardship. It could also increase competition over land and resources, create new displacement pressures and expose more rural populations to criminal exploitation.

As Nigeria approaches the 2027 election cycle, the political consequences could become even more significant.

Food inflation is already a major concern for households, while rural communities increasingly expect governments to guarantee the security required for them to farm.

The emerging threat around Borgu should therefore be viewed as an early warning.

Nigeria may be witnessing not simply another episode of rural banditry, but the gradual expansion of armed-group activity into a strategic agricultural corridor connecting Niger, Kwara and other North-Central states.

It would be premature to conclude that terrorism has definitively shifted from Borno to Niger State. But the geography of recent attacks provides enough evidence to demand closer attention to the possibility of a new frontier.

The lesson from Sambisa and the Lake Chad region is that security threats become far more difficult to dismantle once armed groups acquire space, local networks and freedom of movement.

The priority now should be to prevent the Borgu forest belt from becoming another such entrenched theatre.

For Nigeria’s food-security strategy to succeed, the farm and the battlefield can no longer be treated as separate policy questions.

The central test for the government’s new 90-day national threat assessment will be whether it recognises that protecting Nigeria’s food supply begins with protecting the communities, farms, roads, forests and markets through which that food is produced and transported.

If farmers are driven from their land faster than security agencies can restore confidence, Nigeria may discover that the country’s food-security crisis is not simply a question of how much it can produce.

It may become a question of whether farmers can safely remain on the land at all.