President Bola Tinubu
What was once dismissed as a distant Northern crisis is slowly being entrenched into Nigeria’s economic heartland in the South-West.
Kidnappings on highways once considered safe, attacks on farming communities, school invasions, violent incursions into forests, routine assaults on traditional rulers, and growing criminal networks exploiting porous interstate borders are evidence of a region increasingly under siege.
The brazen Friday attacks on three schools in Oyo State that resulted in at least three deaths and the kidnapping of 46 pupils and teachers must be the last straw. One of the teachers was later beheaded by the attackers.
So, the South-West, especially its leaders, cannot afford the luxury of inaction.
The region has a long history of repelling invaders and protecting its towns and villages.
Yet, the same pattern that consumed parts of the North-East and North-West is now evident in weak intelligence coordination, ungoverned forests, underfunded policing, youth unemployment, interstate criminal mobility, and a dangerous culture of reactive governance.
If the South-West fails to act decisively now, it risks drifting into the same climate of fear, economic paralysis, and social fragmentation that has devastated vast parts of Northern Nigeria.
The stakes are enormous because the South-West is Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre.
Lagos alone powers about 30 per cent of GDP, while the South-West, as a whole, accounts for about half of the total IGR generated by the 36 states.
The Lagos Ibadan Expressway is one of the country’s most strategic economic arteries. The Sagamu Ore corridor links the South-West and South-South regions.
Ports, factories, industrial clusters, banks, technology hubs, universities, hospitals, and markets concentrated in the South West make insecurity in the region a direct threat to the Nigerian economy itself.
That is why prevention must be financed and organised now, and why a regional Security Trust Fund, powered by close private public collaboration, is the most practical, immediate mechanism.
The implications of worsening insecurity are already evident. Businesses face rising operational costs as companies spend billions on private guards, tracking systems, escorts, insurance, and emergency logistics.
Insecurity means that foreign investors become hesitant, supply chains are disrupted, farmers abandon farmland, and food inflation rises.
Skilled professionals will migrate abroad or relocate within the country. Rural displacement has already overstretched urban infrastructure.
As of 2019, the UNDP put the economic cost of terrorism to Nigeria at $79 billion. In the last 10 years, the Federal Government has allocated N27.37 trillion to security and defence, yet the results remain elusive. This cannot continue.
Ultimately, insecurity becomes an economic tax on everyone, including the same private sector that can help reverse this trend through coordinated financing and action.
The Lagos State Security Trust Fund model offers the clearest template for such collaboration. Established in 2007, the LSSTF has become one of Nigeria’s most successful examples of security collaboration between government and the private sector.
Its philosophy is simple but powerful: security is too important to be left to government alone.
Over the years, the fund has mobilised billions of naira from corporate organisations, financiers, market groups, professionals, philanthropists, and ordinary citizens to support security agencies operating in Lagos.
Unlike many government intervention schemes trapped in bureaucracy, the LSSTF created a flexible structure in which private-sector expertise, transparency, speed, and accountability drive execution, and results are visible.
The fund has procured patrol vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, communication gadgets, surveillance infrastructure, drones, gunboats, ballistic helmets, bulletproof vests, forensic tools, ambulances, body armour, and operational logistics for the police and other security agencies.
It has supported the Rapid Response Squad, funded inter agency training programmes, rehabilitated security infrastructure, and recently expanded aerial surveillance collaboration with the police and military.
Critically, the model works because the private sector has confidence that contributions are transparently deployed and visibly impactful.
Last December, the LSSTF reported spending N1.8 billion for 2025 at its 19th Annual Town Hall Meeting on security with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
That template must now evolve beyond Lagos into a South West Regional Security Trust Fund. Indeed, this is no longer optional. It is urgent.
The South West governors, corporate leaders, industrialists, banks, telecom firms, technology companies, manufacturers, transport unions, energy firms, agricultural conglomerates, and professional bodies must jointly establish a regional security financing and intelligence ecosystem that cuts across state boundaries.
Since criminals do not respect state borders, security responses, therefore, cannot remain fragmented.
A regional trust structure should support coordinated surveillance of forests, highways, border communities, schools, hospitals, industrial hubs, markets, and critical infrastructure across Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Osun, and Ekiti states.
Shared intelligence systems, encrypted communication networks, drone surveillance, geofenced patrol vehicles, emergency response platforms, and integrated command centres are now necessities.
The fund could finance common assets, underwrite coordinated operations, and sustain capacity building across states where budgets and political timelines otherwise limit action.
The Western Nigeria Security Network, Amotekun, also requires urgent professional strengthening. While the outfit has demonstrated local relevance, it remains under equipped and unevenly structured across states.
The O’odua Peoples’ Congress, which has also undertaken security responsibilities in South-West communities for years, should be brought into the mix.
The private sector can help transform these organisations from largely political initiatives into modern, intelligence driven security institutions. However, that requires a properly governed funding vehicle and clear operational charters.
This intervention must be carefully structured. Corporate funding should focus primarily on technology, logistics, welfare, insurance, training, communications, mobility, and operational support, not political patronage.
Funds should be ring fenced and independently audited. Vehicles should carry embedded GPS tracking systems. Procurement should be transparent, and annual public reports should be mandatory.
Independent boards dominated by respected private-sector leaders, retired security professionals, and credible civic voices should oversee deployment. These governance measures are what give businesses confidence to commit sustained resources.
The region must also think creatively about funding. Beyond direct corporate donations, South West states can introduce targeted security infrastructure tax credits for companies funding surveillance systems, solar street lighting, emergency communication infrastructure, and rural security projects.
Informal sector participation can be encouraged through micro contribution platforms using digital payment systems.
Major transport and logistics firms can provide fuel, maintenance, and tracking support. Telecom firms can strengthen emergency communication coverage in vulnerable corridors, while technology hubs can build real time threat reporting applications and predictive analytics systems.
A regional trust fund can aggregate these contributions into predictable, accountable finance for shared security priorities.
The private sector must understand that insecurity eventually destroys profit. Factories cannot operate efficiently when workers fear commuting. Banks cannot thrive in collapsing local economies, and real estate values crash in unsafe environments.
Hotels, tourism, retail, entertainment, and transportation sectors all suffer when fear dominates public life.
Security spending through a regional trust fund is, therefore, enlightened self preservation. It is an investment in the stability of markets and the safety of assets on which businesses depend.
The South-West must not go the way of the North, where entire communities have been emptied, agricultural belts have collapsed, schools shut down, and investments abandoned, while millions languish in IDP camps. This is the time for foresight, not complacency.
The governors must rise above politics and build regional coordination. Corporate Nigeria must move beyond CSR tokenism and invest substantially in security resilience via a properly governed South West Security Trust Fund.
Communities must deepen intelligence sharing with law enforcement. Traditional rulers, religious institutions, civil society groups, and youth organisations must become active partners in community vigilance.
The South West still has the advantage of stronger institutions, deeper economic resources, higher educational capacity, and a more vibrant private sector ecosystem than many troubled regions. However, those advantages will mean nothing if leaders wait until insecurity fully metastasises.
The governors must set aside politics and act in unison. They must act firmly, intelligently, collectively, and without the illusion of any looming and effective Federal Government intervention.
The Punch
