Makurdi summit urges regional security strategy for North-central

Governors Hyacinth Alia of Benue and Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau have called for a coordinated regional response to insecurity in Nigeria's North-central states. They spoke at the North Central Regional Security Summit in Makurdi, organised by the Federal Ministry of Defence and the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Community Engagement in partnership with the Benue State Government.

The summit, themed around collaborative approaches to regional stability, examined banditry, terrorism, farmer-herder conflict, kidnapping, organised crime and the spread of violent extremism. Mutfwang said the scale of the violence had outgrown isolated state responses and required an intelligence-driven regional strategy. He said armed attackers were entering Plateau through corridors linking parts of the North-west with Taraba and Nasarawa, and urged security agencies to trace and disrupt those routes.

Alia, who hosted the summit, argued that military deployments alone would not settle the problem. He called for a strategy that draws on traditional rulers, border communities and other local actors able to supply early warning, and for closer intelligence sharing between states. For Benue, which has recorded repeated attacks on rural communities this year, the summit's value will be measured by whether the cooperation it promises reaches those villages.