The recent slaughter of more than seventy vigilantes in Plateau State is more than another tragic headline; it is a national disgrace, a strategic collapse, and a piercing reminder that Nigeria is still failing to take the fight against terrorism with the seriousness it demands.
These men, many of them young and full of resolve, marched into the jaws of death armed with locally fabricated rifles, against terrorists carrying sophisticated, military-grade weapons. The outcome was predictable, and utterly preventable.
On 7 June 2025, according to reports, a combined force of vigilantes from various formations in Wase Local Government Area, bolstered by reinforcements from Taraba State, set out to locate terrorist hideouts in the forests around Kukawa and Bunyun. They were responding to relentless attacks on their communities. Before they could act, they were ambushed. In the chaos of sporadic gunfire and overwhelmed by vastly superior firepower, more than seventy lives were extinguished within minutes.
Sympathy for the bereaved families is heartfelt, but condolences alone are insufficient. These deaths did not need to happen. Vigilantes are not trained soldiers; they are patriotic citizens stepping in to defend their homes where the state has failed. To send them into such peril without proper training, adequate weapons, credible intelligence, and coordinated support is to send them to their deaths.
A pressing question hangs over the incident: were the police and military informed of the vigilantes’ mission? If they were, why was there no joint planning, no backup, no aerial reconnaissance? If they were not, why does such a catastrophic breakdown in coordination remain acceptable in a country that claims to be at war with insurgents?
This exposes a deep fault line in Nigeria’s internal security architecture, the absence of genuine cooperation between formal security agencies and local auxiliary forces.
Vigilantes in Borno, Benue, Zamfara, Plateau, and other states have shown their worth in intelligence gathering and in supporting overstretched military units. That worth evaporates when they are abandoned to face the enemy alone.
For years, analysts and community leaders have pressed for a structured partnership , integrated operations, defined chains of command, systematic intelligence sharing, and standardised training. Yet successive governments have allowed such appeals to gather dust while communities bury their dead.
It is indefensible that despite the trillions of naira reportedly spent on counter-terrorism since 2009, Nigeria’s armed forces still lack the ability, or the will, to track terrorist camps reliably using drones, satellite imaging, and ground sensors.
Such technology exists, and its cost is modest compared with the price of repeated mass funerals. Procurement, however, remains tangled in bureaucracy, compromised by corruption, and crippled by poor management.
When terrorists repeatedly outmanoeuvre state forces in intelligence, the problem is not the absence of technology on the global market; it is the refusal of leadership to make it a priority. The same urgency applied to importing luxury SUVs for politicians should be redirected towards acquiring life-saving battlefield equipment.
President Bola Tinubu recently instructed senior security chiefs to relocate to terrorism flashpoints in Benue and Plateau.
Yet in Nigeria’s security lexicon, “relocation” too often means flying in by helicopter, holding a brief meeting for the cameras, and departing within hours. This is precisely the hollow routine seen under the Buhari administration, cosmetic gestures without operational substance.
When presidential orders are flouted without repercussion, the signal to troops, terrorists, and citizens is identical: there is no political will. Without political will, no volume of money or manpower will win this war.
If Nigeria is serious about saving lives, certain measures must be enacted immediately. The deployment of untrained vigilantes into combat zones must stop at once.
Until they receive proper training and weaponry, their role should be confined to intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, and protecting their immediate communities.
The creation of state police is no longer a topic for academic debate; it is a practical necessity. Such a force, properly regulated, would formally absorb vetted vigilantes, provide them with training, steady pay, insurance cover, and an unambiguous chain of command.
All counter-terrorism missions should be planned and executed through joint operational commands involving the military, police, and auxiliary units, with real-time communication channels and contingency plans firmly in place.
Modern technology, drones, GPS tracking, night-vision devices, and surveillance aircraft, must be deployed urgently to identify and neutralise terrorists before they can strike. In today’s environment, these tools are not optional luxuries but essential assets.
Security chiefs who ignore presidential directives should face public sanctions or outright dismissal. Orders that carry no consequences are worthless.
A nation that relies on volunteers to defend its citizens owes them far more than prayers. It owes them the means to survive, the skills to succeed, and the respect to treat them as partners in security, not as expendable assets.
For more than a decade, Nigeria has been stuck in a grim cycle of condolence messages, security summits, and broken promises. The terrorists have adapted. The question is whether our leaders will.
The blood of the vigilantes spilled in Plateau is a damning indictment of the political class. If leaders continue to treat human lives as mere statistics, they will reveal themselves no different in moral weight from the terrorists they profess to oppose.
Nigeria must now choose, to fight and win, or to keep digging graves.
