Dear Mr President: You said it yourself: ‘Democracy without security is a mirage’

The ₦5.41 trillion security budget is the largest in history. The children of Oyo are still missing. Hope is not a plan. Here is one.

This column agrees. Unreservedly. That sentence is the most important thing said in any Nigerian public address this year. It is the correct diagnosis. It is the right standard. And it is the standard by which this column — respectfully, precisely, and without sycophancy — will now measure three years of your administration’s security record.

You also said this, in the same speech: “Though this year’s mood is dampened by the abduction of our children in Oyo and Borno, we remain hopeful for their safe return.”

Hopeful! The children of Oriire LGA, Oyo State — 18 primary school pupils, 7 secondary students, 7 teachers — were taken on May 15.

They are still missing as this column goes to press. And the word chosen to describe the government’s posture towards their return was: hopeful. Mr. President, hope is what families have. It is not what governments do. Governments act. This column is about the action.

THE SPEECH AND THE RECORD

Your Democracy Day address cited three security achievements: 81% reduction in terror deaths since 2015, over 13,000 terrorists neutralised in the past year, and 124,000 fighters disarmed through Operation Safe Corridor. This column acknowledges all three.

They are real. They are consequential.

Counterterrorism is working.

But counterterrorism and kidnapping prevention are not the same war. They have different perpetrators, different operational profiles, different geographic footprints, and different solutions. The 81% reduction in terror deaths is an 11-year metric measured from 2015.

The 401% increase in school kidnappings is a 3-year metric measured from the day you took office. Both statistics are true simultaneously — and the speech that cites one while describing the other as a dampened mood has conflated two entirely separate security failures into a single reassuring narrative.

Your speech announced a ₦5.41 trillion security budget — the largest in Nigeria’s history. This column does not question the size of that budget.

It questions its architecture. A budget is not a plan. It is a resource. The question is whether ₦5.41 trillion is being allocated with the precision that the kidnapping crisis specifically requires — or whether it is being distributed across a security apparatus that is optimised for the war it is winning and structurally unprepared for the one it is not.

You also told young Nigerians: “Build here, code here, work here.” The parents of the children still missing from Oyo also told their children something on the morning of May 15. They told them to go to school. The school has been the primary target in 9 of the 10 mass abductions recorded under your administration. If democracy must be felt in the quality of people’s lives — your own words — then the quality of a parent’s life includes the certainty that their child comes home from school.

WHAT ₦5.41 TRILLION SHOULD BUY — SPECIFICALLY

Mr. President, you asked Nigerians not to assign blame or point fingers. This column accepts that instruction entirely. It is not pointing fingers. It is pointing at three technology-grounded, operationally precise, costed solutions that your ₦5.41 trillion security budget can fund in full — and that will produce measurable outcomes within 90 days. The largest security budget in Nigerian history should produce the most capable security response in Nigerian history. Here is what that looks like.

THE ASK

Mr. President, this column has now given you three directives across two editions. The combined cost is ₦180 billion — 3.3% of the ₦5.41 trillion security budget you announced on June 12. Three percent of the budget. Applied to the specific failure the budget is not currently addressing. That is not a significant ask. It is a reallocation.

You said democracy without security is a mirage.

You said Nigeria’s mood is dampened by the abduction of children. You said your administration is ever ready to do much more to secure the people. Mr. President, this column is not here to argue with those words. It is here to give them operational meaning.

You told Nigerians not to assign blame. This column is not assigning blame. It is assigning budgets. There is a difference. And the difference is ₦180 billion directed with precision at the three gaps that your largest-ever security appropriation has not yet closed.

The children of Oyo are still waiting. The parents are not hopeful. They are waiting for the state to act with the same urgency it showed for the minister’s family — and the same urgency that your Democracy Day speech promised every Nigerian without exception.

You gave Nigeria the standard, Mr. President.

“Democracy without security is a mirage.”
By your own standard — and with your own budget — build the system.

WATCH OUT NEXT WEEK FOR PART THREE OF MY SECURITY TRILOGY: “Here Is Exactly How To Fix This — Before The Next Child Is Taken”

The full blueprint. Five directives. Three country models. The cost-benefit case that makes inaction inexcusable.

A Nigerian who means well. Writing until someone listens.

Afolabi Abiodun — Entrepreneur | EdTech Professional | CISA-Certified Information Security Expert | PhD Candidate