On Saturday May 16, the world received a jolt that should have shaken every northern Nigerian leader to the marrow. American and Nigerian joint forces announced the elimination of Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, the second-in-command of ISIS globally, who had been hiding in northern Nigeria for years. A terrorist ranked as the second most brutal on earth was living among us. While the Nigerian military had claimed to have killed the same commander as far back as February 2024 in Kaduna State, the recent US-Nigeria joint strike confirmed he was very much alive and operating from the Lake Chad Basin . The question that should haunt every northern governor, every traditional ruler, and every political elite is this: how did this happen under our watch?
This revelation is not merely shocking; it is a damning verdict that proves that the ground beneath northern Nigeria has become fertile soil for the world’s most dangerous terrorist networks. It is a signal that the region is no longer just battling bandits or Boko Haram splinter groups but has become a sanctuary for global jihad. The time for blaming Abuja or pointing fingers at President Bola Tinubu has long expired. What remains is the urgent necessity for sober reflection – and full, unconditional cooperation with the Tinubu government to root out this evil before the next time bomb detonates.
For too long, northern leaders have behaved like sleepwalkers marching toward a cliff. The rot did not begin yesterday. The roots of the current crisis stretch back decades, to the destruction of the region’s agricultural value chain, the failure to make education free and compulsory, and the disastrous consequences of the Structural Adjustment Programme that wiped out northern industries like textiles . As far back as the Maitatsine riots of the early 1980s, warnings were issued. They were ignored.
More recently, successive northern political elites have treated insecurity as a political weapon. During President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure, insecurity became political currency. Northern leaders used every attack as a campaign talking point against the presidency while absolving themselves of any responsibility for the monster growing in their own backyard . Those same actors, now occupying positions of authority, have offered no solutions, only evasive statements and a familiar call for “dialogue” with criminals whose only language is violence.
The truth, however uncomfortable, is that the northern establishment has been in denial for years. As Rotimi Fasan recently wrote, the North has outsourced its responsibility, pointing fingers elsewhere while a huge, untrained population, deliberately left uneducated, has transformed into the murderous machinery of insurgency and banditry troubling all of Nigeria today. The children of the poor, whom the region refused to train, have now made peace impossible. This was common sense ignored.
One northern leader, however, has had the courage to speak truth to power. Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani, in a striking address in July 2025, told his colleagues exactly what needed to be heard: stop blaming President Tinubu for challenges that have been festering under northern watch for two decades .
“For over 20 years, insecurity grew, education declined, and poverty deepened. Where were the loud voices now blaming Tinubu when these things took root? It is hypocrisy to now shift responsibility to a government that inherited decades of rot”, Uba Sani said.
Sani’s words cut through the fog of political posturing. He reminded northern leaders that President Tinubu has kept faith with the North in critical areas – security, agriculture, education, economic inclusion. The student loan scheme, agricultural inputs, irrigation projects, and market access initiatives from the federal government have benefited northern farmers and youth in ways no previous administration had achieved . Yet, instead of building on these gains, many northern elites remain trapped in a blame game that solves nothing.
The Kaduna governor went further, insisting that the era of waiting for Abuja to solve every problem must end. “The North must rise and take charge of its own destiny,” he said, pointing to his state’s “Kaduna Peace Model” – a hybrid security framework combining military operations, local vigilantes, community dialogue, and institutional reforms, as proof that local ownership of security challenges yields results.
Former Senator Shehu Sani, never one to mince words, also added his voice to the chorus of sober reflection. In November 2025, he accused northern leaders of exploiting the region’s security challenges for political gain ahead of the 2027 elections. He pointed to the Almajiri system, mass illiteracy, poverty, and underdevelopment as the root causes of insecurity, problems that northern elites have presided over for decades.
“For 15 years, northern Nigeria has been a theatre of bloodshed,” Sani said, recounting attacks on Bethel Baptist High School, Greenfield University, the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, and the abduction of schoolchildren in Jangebe, Yauri, and countless other communities . Many victims spent years in captivity while leaders looked away. The abductions became a profitable industry, with Nigerians paying an estimated N2.23 trillion in ransom within a single year.
Sani’s indictment is damning: northern leaders have played politics with blood. And now, with the discovery that ISIS’s second-in-command was hiding in the region, the game is up.
What, then, must northern leaders do?
First, sober reflection means acknowledging that the North has a ownership problem. The region’s political and traditional leaders must stop nationalizing a crisis they largely created. They must admit that decades of neglecting Western education, tolerating the Almajiri system as a substitute for schooling, and allowing poverty to fester have produced a generation vulnerable to extremist recruitment. As Governor Uba Sani put it, “This engagement must go beyond ceremonial speeches. It is a moment for deep reflection” .
Second, cooperation with the federal government must move from rhetoric to reality. The Northern Governors’ Forum has, on paper, reaffirmed its support for President Tinubu’s security efforts . But paper is cheap. What is needed is actionable intelligence sharing, joint military operations with state-level security networks, and a dismantling of the financial networks that sustain kidnap-for-ransom syndicates. Northern governors must deploy their state resources – not just their communiqués – in the fight against terror.
Third, northern leaders must confront the fifth columnists in their midst. As Sunday James recently argued, Nigeria must identify and prosecute every political, traditional, or religious figure who sponsors, enables, or profits from insecurity . Prison, not patronage, should be the fate of terrorist sympathizers. The North cannot claim to fight Boko Haram while allowing its financiers to walk free.
The killing of ISIS’s second-in-command is a tactical victory. The conditions that allowed him to hide in northern Nigeria for years remain unchanged: poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and a political class more interested in election cycles than in the survival of its people. The North is committing a slow form of political suicide, as one analyst put it, prioritizing short-term gains over long-term survival .
But there is still time. The North has the population, the land, and the history to reclaim its legacy. What it lacks is the will. Governor Uba Sani has shown the way – by speaking truth, by taking ownership, and by calling for cooperation instead of complaint. Shehu Sani has done the same. Now, the rest of northern leadership must follow.
The alternative is unthinkable: a region so lost to insecurity that it becomes a permanent sanctuary for the world’s most brutal terrorists. That future is not inevitable. But it will be the certain outcome if northern leaders refuse to wake up. The time for sober reflection is now. The time for full cooperation with the Tinubu government is now. Tomorrow may be too late.
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