Nigeria’s Expanding Triangle Of Terror: How Rescue Wins Mask A Deepening Security Collapse
By TOSI ORE
Behind Tinubu’s ‘Aerial Siege’ — Fresh Abductions, Tactical Failures, and a Corridor of Impunity Widening Across Three States
THE Tinubu administration entered the week determined to project strength. The rescue of 24 schoolgirls in Kebbi State and 38 church worshippers in Kwara State was framed as evidence that its security blueprint is finally working. Images of the freed victims — exhausted but alive — were broadcast nationwide as proof that “Renewed Hope” was paying dividends.
But the celebration was short-lived. Beneath the official triumphalism lies a harsher, more troubling reality: the very same week that government hailed its success, fresh attacks, conflicting narratives, bureaucratic confusion, and widening security gaps exposed the fragility of those gains.
What unfolded across Kwara, Kebbi, and Niger States is not a string of unrelated incidents. It is the latest confirmation of a dangerous pattern first identified in the investigative report “The Triangle of Terror” — a vast, ungoverned corridor linking the three states, where bandits operate with alarming coordination and ease.
This week, that corridor expanded.
A New Attack Just Five Kilometres Away — Proof of a Permeable Security Cordon
Barely 24 hours after the Eruku church abductees were released, armed bandits stormed Isapa — a nearby community in the same Kwara local council. The attack followed a familiar tactic: infiltrating town at dusk while hiding behind a herd of cattle, a technique earlier documented in the “Triangle of Terror” analysis.
The proximity of the two incidents raises an uncomfortable question: If security forces were fully deployed around Eruku, how did another armed group move undetected just five kilometres away?
The answer points to a structural failure. The dense forest belt connecting Kwara to Niger remains a lawless sanctuary — territory the state still struggles to penetrate. Community accounts suggest far more than the officially reported 10 victims were abducted, reinforcing the sense that the security gains being touted are surface-deep.
The Kebbi Rescue: Tactical Victory or Political Theatre?
The return of the 24 Kebbi schoolgirls was presented by the federal government as a combat success. Officials insisted the operation ended with a firefight in Makwa Forest — “no ransom paid.”
But that version is now under political dispute.
The Zamfara State PDP accused Defence Minister Bello Matawalle of quietly re-embracing the controversial “peace deals” he once struck as governor — deals widely blamed for strengthening bandit networks across the North-West. Circulating videos of the abducted girls suggest negotiations, not gun battles, led to the release.
The allegation, if even partially true, underscores a deeper problem: the political architecture of the Triangle of Terror is as dangerous as its geography.
Shadow negotiations, ransom payments, and unofficial pacts could be sustaining the terror economy the government claims to be dismantling.
Niger State: More Than 265 Children Still Missing — and Government ‘In the Dark’
Nowhere is the crisis more acute than in Niger State. While celebrations trailed the Kebbi rescue, more than 265 students and teachers abducted from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri remain missing.
Shockingly, the federal government says it cannot confirm the exact number of victims.
Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga admitted authorities lack a full list because the school management and CAN have not provided one — and the principal has reportedly “disappeared.”
For desperate parents, this bureaucratic paralysis is a second trauma. “My son cannot talk. He is only four,” a grieving father told reporters. “We do not know where he is.”
The admission mirrors the core argument of earlier investigations: in parts of the Triangle, citizens trust bandits more than the state to negotiate the safety of their children.
The Limits of Tinubu’s ‘Aerial Siege’: Human Shields, Forest Bunkers, and Moral Paralysis
President Tinubu has now ordered a “round-the-clock aerial siege” over the forests connecting the three states. But military insiders concede the same problem remains: airstrikes cannot be deployed without risking civilian deaths.
Bandits exploit this restraint by embedding themselves within rural settlements and surrounding themselves with abducted students, effectively neutralising Nigeria’s air power.
This leaves ground troops — already overstretched — to conduct complex rescues without adequate intelligence, mobility, or local cooperation.
The “aerial siege” risks becoming a symbolic gesture rather than a decisive strategy.
An Education System on the Brink
The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has issued a stark warning: teachers may withdraw from classrooms if safety cannot be guaranteed.
This would cripple education across the North and hand violent extremists a victory that aligns perfectly with their anti-western ideology.
The collapse of schooling would create a generational crisis — one the terrorists could leverage for recruitment, ransom economies, and control over uneducated rural populations.
Conclusion: The Week That Exposed the Illusion of Progress
The safe return of the Kebbi and Kwara victims is worthy of relief. But they are the exception, not the rule.
This week confirmed a bigger, far more unsettling truth:
Nigeria is not closing the Triangle of Terror; it is fighting inside it. And losing ground.
Fresh abductions, contradictory government accounts, political infighting, missing victims lists, and the inability to launch decisive strikes all point to a system overwhelmed by insurgents who understand the terrain — and the politics — better than the state does.
Until Nigeria confronts the political enablers, the ransom economy, and the ungoverned spaces that allow bandits to thrive, the cycle will continue.
Rescues will make headlines.
But the terror corridor will remain open.
And families in Isapa, Papiri, Tsanyawa, and countless rural communities will continue to brace for the next nightfall.
