IF TINUBU IS THE ARCHITECT OF MODERN NIGERIA, WHY DID HE INCLUDE TURJI IN THE DESIGN? - MOHAMMED BELLO DOKA

Is Bello Turji part of a design to weaken the North, or merely a convenient footnote in a blueprint where insecurity doubles as a convininent excuse for resource capture?

Welcome to Sarcastic Sunday. This week, with Mohammed Bello Doka, we examine Nigeria’s political gymnastics sarcastically, because approaching them soberly is a health hazard. Here, we laugh so we don’t suffocate. We mock so we don’t scream. We ask questions because silence, in this country, has become a security risk.

We are constantly reminded—loudly, lovingly, and with evangelical zeal—that President Bola Tinubu is the architect of modern Nigeria. Architects, we are told, design order. They erect systems. They secure foundations. They enforce structural integrity. Which raises an awkward, impolite, but necessary question: since when do architects invite demolition crews to stakeholder meetings?

Because somewhere between the speeches and the slogans, Bello Turji emerged not as an aberration, but as a recurring feature of the landscape. Not merely a bandit, but a symbol—of armed non-state power, territorial confidence, and the audacity to speak publicly while holding citizens hostage. In parts of northern Nigeria, his name carries more certainty than the presence of the state. No ribbon-cutting ceremony, yet fully operational.

Now, before the cooperate data men and women clear their throats, let’s do the inconvenient thing and introduce numbers. Independent conflict tracking using ACLED data, reported by ICIR Nigeria and Premium Times, shows that over 18,000 people were killed in insecurity-related incidents between May 29, 2023 and May 2025, with northern states accounting for the overwhelming majority. In the same period, as many as 12,584 Nigerians were abducted, again with the North bearing the brunt. Reuters, citing Nigeria’s own human rights authorities, reports that 2,266 people were killed in just the first half of 2025, more than the total for all of 2024 combined. Conflict monitors at ACAPS classify the Northeast as “Very High” severity and the Northwest as “High” on global scales.

At this point, a cunkish but reasonable question suggests itself: at what casualty threshold does “context” become “collapse”?

This is where the plot thickens into farce. Because alongside the bloodshed came something new—not violence, Nigeria has known that—but normalised negotiation. Not rumours. Not whispers. Public record. Lawmakers in the National Assembly openly warned that negotiating with bandits fuels more kidnappings, proposing penalties for officials who engage in it. Defence authorities publicly cautioned state governors to stop negotiating with bandits, which is a curious warning to issue about something that allegedly does not happen. Officials confirmed “contact” through clerics, traditional rulers, and intermediaries, while simultaneously insisting no ransom was paid. Words were chosen carefully. Outcomes were not.

And then there were the videos. Those unforgettable clips of armed men, relaxed and confident, addressing the nation from forests Nigeria’s security forces apparently cannot find. In Kebbi State in late 2025, bandits appeared in widely circulated videos claiming negotiations preceded the release of abducted schoolgirls, openly mocking the idea that force secured their freedom. The Whistler and Premium Times reported it. The government denied ransom, cited “pressure and coordination,” and moved on.

From the Northeast to the Northwest and right through the North-Central, the roll call never changes: insurgency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa; bandit kingdoms in Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna; highways converted into toll gates, farms into killing fields, schools into bargaining chips. Entire communities now schedule life around abduction seasons. Yet when it is time to explain why roads remain on paper, hospitals stuck at foundation level and rail projects permanently “under review,” the government suddenly remembers insecurity—that sacred, convenient excuse. Curiously, this same insecurity is apparently too ferocious for bulldozers but tame enough for negotiations, too deadly for engineers but friendly enough for clerics, intermediaries and back-channel “contacts.” 

Projects cannot proceed because the North is unsafe, we are told—yet confronting those making it unsafe is optional. One is left with an uncomfortable, sarcastic question: is this contradiction part of the design, or did the architect simply forget that buildings don’t rise in places where arsonists are treated as stakeholders? Or to put it more bluntly is this part of the design from the architect of mordern Nigeria?

Another cunkish question: when criminals are winning the optics war, who exactly is the authority here?

Supporters respond with history. Nigeria has faced violence before, they say. True. Civil war had frontlines. Niger Delta militancy had geography. Boko Haram, even at its peak, had concentration. What Nigeria is dealing with now is different. Insurgency in the Northeast. Banditry in the Northwest. Communal violence in the North Central. Schools, highways, farms, churches—simultaneously. When everything is a hotspot, it stops being a crisis and starts looking like a design flaw.

Security analysts talk about incentives, a boring word that bandits understand perfectly. If kidnapping attracts intermediaries, negotiations, and eventual releases, the lesson is obvious. As one uncomfortable truth puts it: if kidnapping pays, kidnapping scales. And scale it has—across forests, borders, and entire states.

At the federal level, there are denials. At the state level, there are “local solutions.” In the forests, there are results. From Zamfara to Kaduna, releases are attributed to dialogue and engagement, even as officials argue over definitions. Federalism, Nigerian style: decentralised responsibility, decentralised denial.

So we return to architecture, because metaphors sometimes tell the truth more cleanly than press statements. A building that negotiates with arsonists should not be surprised when it keeps burning. A blueprint that accommodates bandits should expect expansion, not stability.

Modern states confront violence. Weak states converse with it. States in denial celebrate architects while the structure collapses.

And so we ask—politely, sarcastically, and with data—if Tinubu is truly the architect of modern Nigeria, why does the design have room for Turji? Is Turji part of the blue print or convininent tool for neglect and resource capture?

Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via bellodoka82@gmail.com