By Ifeanyi Obinali

As the dust settles from last weekend’s failed coup in Benin Republic and the Nigerian Senate’s recent approval of troop deployment to assist the Beninese government, many Nigerians are asking: Was this really the right call—especially given the worsening security disaster back home?

On December 7, 2025, the government of Benin requested military intervention after mutinying soldiers attempted to overthrow their president. Responding swiftly, President Bola Tinubu ordered the mobilization of Nigerian fighter jets and ground troops to help restore constitutional order in the neighbouring country. Reports indicate that the intervention succeeded, as airstrikes and ground forces helped quash the coup attempt. This was indeed a bold gesture toward a neighbour—but at what domestic cost?

In the eyes of many observers, including Nigeria’s leaders, this move demonstrates solidarity with a neighbour and reaffirms Nigeria’s role as a stabiliser in the region. President Tinubu framed the action as an affirmation of shared democratic values under ECOWAS. However, for many Nigerians who face daily threats from kidnappings, banditry, and village massacres, the spectacle of foreign intervention feels dangerously disconnected from the urgent realities of life at home, especially in northern Nigeria.

The northern crisis is now more than a security challenge; it has become a humanitarian disaster. Over the last decade, large parts of northern Nigeria—particularly the North-West and North-Central zones—have been ravaged by violence: kidnappings, bandit raids, mass abductions of schoolchildren, attacks on villages and farms, and deadly assaults on houses of worship.

Today, killings, kidnappings, and violent raids by so-called bandit gangs are everyday realities for citizens in Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, and Niger states. It is shameful and deeply saddening to note that, 15 years after Chibok, Nigeria is still grappling with the same challenges, with schoolchildren in Kebbi and Niger facing similar inhumane situations from which they may never recover. Worse still, the posture of the government does not demonstrate the readiness to tackle this issue decisively.

How can an order be given for the removal of military officers and security personnel protecting a school in Kebbi mere hours before bandits attacked, killed the principal, and kidnapped students, yet Nigerians still do not officially know the identity of the individual who issued that order? Even more disturbing is the fact that this person is not in custody. This is a stark manifestation of how deeply entrenched insecurity has become in the system, particularly because military movements rarely occur without clear authorisation, especially in high-risk areas.

These attacks do more than endanger lives; they destroy communities, displace families, force farmers off their land, and worsen poverty and hunger, realities already highlighted in recent food insecurity projections.

As with every sovereign nation, the government’s primary responsibility is to ensure security and protect the lives of its citizens. When a government commits troops abroad, especially in reactive operations—it sends a message about its priorities. Deploying personnel to Benin may shore up regional influence, but it comes at a cost: the growing insecurity at home and the millions of naira that could have been invested in tackling domestic threats.

Given the scale of terror, banditry, and kidnapping in the North, diverting troops and military assets to another country is a miscalculation. Just as Nigerian troops were deployed with full force to Cotonou, they could have responded with similar urgency to the insecurity in the North, at a time when citizens desperately needed protection.

What message does this send to a family in Katsina or Zamfara whose village was raided last week, whose children were abducted, and whose farm was set ablaze, while military jets fly to foreign capitals instead of guarding schools and farmlands at home?

Beyond optics, the government’s focus must be internal, because the human cost of insecurity in Nigeria is enormous and rapidly rising. The number of attacks, abductions, and killings in the North has soared over the past decade. For thousands of families, insecurity is no longer an abstract concept but a daily terror. Citizens expect their government to protect their lives, secure their children’s education, and safeguard their land. When security appears selectively deployed abroad while domestic threats rage, public trust erodes.

There is no doubt that regional instability threatens all West African nations and that solidarity among neighbours is sometimes necessary. However, for a country still grappling with rampant kidnappings, banditry, and deadly attacks across its own territory, where lives, livelihoods, and futures hang in the balance, stability at home must come first.

Nigerians cannot continue to remain vulnerable, their lands insecure, and their families unprotected while foreign capitals enjoy the protection of Nigerian jets and troops. Before embarking on any foreign engagements, the government must deploy the full force of its security apparatus to where it is most urgently needed: at home, particularly in the North-East, North-West, and North-Central regions, and across Nigeria as a whole.

Ifeanyi Obinali, a security expert and CEO of LEAD Security Group in New York, United States, and CEO of LISS-LEAD Integrated Security Solutions in Lagos