In a recent interview with The Sun on Sunday, March 15, 2026, Alhaji Shuaibu Ado Dansudu, the National President of the Arewa United Consultative Forum, has stated that Nigeria’s security crisis could have been addressed earlier if stronger measures had been taken at the beginning of the insurgency.
Dansudu said the insurgency problem started to gain attention during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, according to him, the crisis was still at an early stage when Jonathan assumed office, and it had not yet grown into the widespread challenge that Nigeria later experienced.
He explained that the early phase of the insurgency presented an opportunity for decisive action that could have limited its expansion, in his view, stronger security responses at that time might have prevented the crisis from escalating into a major national threat.
Dansudu argued that if the government at the time had taken stronger steps similar to what he believes is being done today under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the situation might have been resolved much earlier and suggested that even a partial implementation of such measures could have helped the country gain control of the problem before it spread across several regions.
According to him, the delay in taking firm action allowed the insurgency to grow in strength and influence, as the years passed, the challenge became more complex and required greater resources and coordination among security agencies.
The Arewa leader said that early intervention is always critical in dealing with security threats and noted that once such threats are allowed to expand, they become more difficult and costly to control.
”Jonathan came to power when the problem was just starting. If the former President Jonathan government had done half of what Tinubu is doing now then the war against insecurity would have been won since,” he said.