The gruesome killing of more than 170 villagers in Woro community, Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State, is not just another entry in Nigeria’s grim ledger of violence. It is a national alarm bell—loud, chilling and impossible to dismiss. The massacre, reportedly carried out by Fulani bandits, Boko Haram or Islamic State–linked fighters operating from the vast Kainji forest corridor, has shattered a dangerous illusion Nigerians have nursed for years: that jihadist insurgency is a far-north problem that will never touch the Yoruba heartland.
For more than a decade, Boko Haram, ISWAP and their affiliates were framed as a regional nuisance restricted to Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. Policymakers built entire security doctrines around a geographically confined insurgency. Intelligence assets, military formations and surveillance infrastructure were concentrated in the North-East. The public took comfort in distance, believing the storm would never cross the River Niger. Governors in the South-West spoke of bandits and kidnappers as criminals, not insurgents. Federal officials downplayed early warnings from security analysts who cautioned that Nigeria’s forests were turning into ungoverned sanctuaries for jihadist expansion.
That narrative collapsed in a pool of blood in Kwara.
Some of the children of Fulani settlers have joined the war against their hosts.
Although they grew up in Yoruba land, they have no love for their landlords.
They are the ones who helped their brothers who came from other countries to attack their perceived enemies.
Yoruba lands have been exposed by weak politicians and selfish traditional rulers who can go to any length to sell their brothers to outsiders.
The majority of the so-called bastards have risen to become kings and influential politicians, especially in Osun and Kwara states.
They worked relentlessly to undermine the peace and security of the Yorubas.
These people are not to be seen as royal fathers and successful politicians; they are supposed to be uprooted if we want peace in Yoruba land.
What happened in Woro is not an isolated horror. It is part of a calculated, deliberate and deeply strategic southward expansion by jihadist groups exploiting Nigeria’s fragile security architecture, political inertia and vast ungoverned spaces. It marks the beginning of a new phase in Nigeria’s security nightmare—one that threatens the South-West and the very spine of the Yoruba Land.
The Nigerian Civil War taught the nation how ideology and identity can tear a country apart; Fulani bandits and other terrorists represents a different but equally existential ideological assault.
Although the Fulani bandits were brought in by their leaders in government for a different purpose: to commit genocide and eliminate many people from their ancestral homes.
That is why they are the most protected terrorists in Nigeria.
Since the reported accusations of Miyetti Allah being armed by the Office of the NSA surfaced on the pages of newspapers, the attacks by terrorists have escalated in Yoruba land.
Towns were emptied, villages erased, millions displaced, and entire local economies destroyed. Yoruba land, once a thriving commercial hub, became a garrison city. Farmers abandoned fields. Children ran from villages to towns. But insurgencies do not die quietly. They mutate, adapt and migrate. Under pressure, they spread.
Sustained military operations in Borno and neighbouring states degraded some insurgent strongholds. Camps were overrun, commanders eliminated, supply routes disrupted. Yet the insurgency never collapsed. Faced with pressure, insurgent doctrine dictates dispersal. Fighters scatter into less contested territories, establish sleeper cells, blend with criminal networks and quietly build new theatres of operation. Kwara, Niger, Kogi and parts of Oyo and Ogun states represent precisely such frontiers—territories historically neglected in counter insurgency planning and dangerously under-secured. What began as banditry in many of these places has gradually merged with ideological militancy, creating a toxic hybrid of crime and jihad.
Yoruba forests have become the insurgents’ new sanctuaries. Kainji National Park, Borgu Forest Reserve and Old Oyo National Park are vast, porous and barely governed. They are ideal for hideouts, training camps, arms depots and cross-border transit. The Kainji corridor alone links Kwara, Niger and Kebbi to Benin Republic, offering jihadists a transnational escape route that mocks Nigeria’s weak border controls. I warned months before the Woro massacre that “these forests are becoming Nigeria’s Afghanistan. Whoever controls them controls the Yoruba land.” The warning went largely unheeded, buried under political distractions and bureaucratic inertia.
For decades, Nigeria’s counterterrorism focus was narrow and myopic. Intelligence, surveillance and military deployments were concentrated in the North-East. The Middle Belt and South-West were treated as safe zones, with security agencies configured to fight armed robbery, not insurgency. Jihadist groups thrive in such blind spots. They probe, test, preach, intimidate and recruit—often for months—before striking. In parts of Kwara and neighbouring states, militants reportedly operated openly, gauging community reactions and the state’s absence. When resistance persisted and state protection failed to materialise, they unleashed terror. Local chiefs reportedly warned authorities of strange preachers and armed strangers in the forests. The response was lethargic.
Insurgency is also a business. Fighters need money for weapons, logistics, propaganda and patronage networks. As traditional funding routes became risky, jihadist groups turned to kidnapping, cattle rustling and rural taxation. The Middle Belt and South-West are agriculturally rich, with highways and rural roads slicing through dense forests—ideal ambush terrain. Kidnapping has become both a revenue stream and a psychological weapon. Communities pay, governments negotiate, and the insurgents grow bolder. A lawmaker from the North-Central region recently lamented that “some rural communities are now paying two taxes—one to the Nigerian state and another to armed groups in the forest. That is the definition of a failing state.”
God forbid, that is their plan for Yoruba land. Already, some politicians and royal fathers have been recruited into this plan; it is just a matter of time before everything comes to limelight.
Yet ideology remains the beating heart of jihadist expansion. Fulani bandits, Boko Haram, ISWAP and their affiliates believe territorial expansion is a must to recapture where their forefathers stopped. They reject the Nigerian constitution, democracy and secular governance. In several communities across Kwara, Niger and parts of the South-West, militants reportedly entered villages to preach, demand allegiance and threaten punishment for defiance. Woro’s massacre reportedly followed villagers’ refusal to submit. Blood was the message. In the language of extremists, terror is theology enforced by bullets.
The Sahel crisis has poured petrol on this fire. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have become jihadist playgrounds following state collapse, coups and weak governance. Fighters, weapons and ideology flow southward through porous borders into Nigeria. Kebbi, Niger and Kwara sit astride these routes, turning Nigeria into both a corridor and a target for transnational jihadist networks that see the Gulf of Guinea as the next frontier. A regional security analyst noted that “what we are seeing is the gradual construction of a jihadist belt from the Sahel to the Atlantic coast. Nigeria is the prize.” If Nigeria falters, the ripple effects will destabilise the entire West African sub-region.
The attack on Woro was not random banditry; it was strategic theatre. Militants reportedly issued warnings months earlier, testing the community and the state’s response. None came. Then came the slaughter. Homes burned. Families wiped out. Women and children abducted. With a death toll estimated at over 170, the massacre stands as one of the deadliest in Kwara’s history—and a declaration that jihadist violence has arrived in Nigeria’s supposed safe zones. It is a message written in fire: no region is immune.
The implications are staggering. Terrorism is no longer a North-East problem. It now spans North-West bandit corridors, North-Central forests and creeping cells in the South-West. This diffusion transforms Nigeria’s security challenge into a multi-front war that strains manpower, logistics and political will. The military cannot be everywhere at once. Local vigilantes are no match for ideologically driven fighters with transnational backing. Intelligence agencies are stretched thin.
The South-West, Nigeria’s economic engine, is no longer insulated. Jihadist infiltration threatens farms, highways, schools, markets and investments. Persistent insecurity could cripple agriculture, disrupt trade and scare away capital, turning prosperity into paralysis. Lagos depends on food from the Middle Belt and South-West hinterlands. If farms become battlefields, food prices will skyrocket, inflation will worsen, and social unrest will follow.
More dangerously, jihadist violence is designed to fracture society. Attacks on rural communities can provoke ethnic militias, vigilante reprisals and religious polarisation. Nigeria’s fragile social fabric, already stretched by identity politics, could tear apart under the pressure of insurgent provocations. Extremists understand that civil strife is a force multiplier. The Maitatsine riots of the 1980s and the religious crises of the 1990s are reminders of how quickly Nigeria can burn when identity is weaponised.
Nigeria’s military is already overstretched—fighting Boko Haram, bandits, separatists and oil militants simultaneously. Expanding jihadist fronts will stretch the armed forces to breaking point. Counterinsurgency is not just about guns and boots; it is about intelligence, governance, development and trust. Nigeria is weak in all four. Corruption, inter-agency rivalry and political interference have undermined security operations for decades.
The path forward is clear but politically uncomfortable. Forests and national parks must be reclaimed as strategic security zones, not abandoned conservation spaces. Permanent military and ranger presence, aerial surveillance and technology-driven monitoring must deny militants sanctuary. Borders must be treated as frontlines, with deepened intelligence sharing and joint operations with Benin, Niger and other neighbours. Nigeria must invest in drones, satellite imagery and rapid-response units that can operate deep in forests.
Communities must be empowered as the first line of defence. Community policing, local intelligence networks and early-warning systems can provide actionable information before massacres happen. But this requires rebuilding trust between citizens and a state long perceived as distant and indifferent. When villagers report suspicious movements, the response must be swift and decisive, not bureaucratic.
Poverty, unemployment and rural neglect remain the silent allies of extremism. Development, education and inclusive governance are not just social policies; they are counterterrorism strategies. A state that does not serve its people leaves space for extremists to claim legitimacy. Schools, roads, hospitals and jobs are as important as guns and bullets in defeating insurgency.
Above all, Nigeria needs political leadership that understands the gravity of the moment. Extremists thrive on division. Ethnic and religious rhetoric must give way to national consensus. Counterinsurgency is as much a political and moral battle as a military one. Leaders who play identity politics are unwittingly recruiting for extremists.
The massacre in Kwara State is a warning shot across Nigeria’s bow. Jihadist groups are no longer content with remote enclaves in the North-East. They are probing Nigeria’s heartland, testing its defences and carving out new territories of influence in forests and forgotten communities. Every ungoverned space is an invitation. Every neglected village is a potential battlefield.
Nigeria stands at a historic crossroads. Failure to act decisively will allow extremist networks to entrench themselves from the Sahel to the Gulf of Guinea, turning Africa’s largest economy into a permanent battlefield. Success will require military resolve, political courage, social cohesion and governance reform on a scale Nigeria has rarely attempted. The stakes could not be higher.
The question is no longer whether jihadist groups are moving into Yoruba land. They already have. The real question is whether Yorubas will rise with the urgency, unity and seriousness required to stop them before their ancestral home becomes a battleground and their security crisis becomes an existential catastrophe.
May God not allow the children of the landlords to become homeless in the nearest future.
Mogaji Wole Arisekola, Publisher of The Street Journal Newspaper, writes from Ibadan.
