From Fragility to Opportunity: Why Security Is Central to the North-West Framework

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Capt. Oluwole discusses the Framework live on AIT Kakaaki

Speaking live from New York on 22 September 2026, Capt. Oyeleke Folajuwon Oluwole joined Africa Independent Television's Kakaaki programme to examine the North-West Governors' shared agenda, why security is fundamental to delivery, and how credible implementation can help convert regional ambition into investment and measurable outcomes.

The event moved the conversation from declaration to delivery

On 21 September 2026, the seven Governors of North-West Nigeria used a high-level side event on the margins of the 81st United Nations General Assembly to present a shared regional proposition: peace, resilience and economic opportunity must advance together. UNDP's official account, published the following day, records a call for stronger partnerships, development finance and responsible investment to translate the North-West Peace, Security and Development Framework 2026-2030 into action.

Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara captured the investment argument in direct terms: "You cannot secure a region into prosperity. You have to invest in it." UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed likewise stressed that security operations remain necessary but cannot, by themselves, deliver lasting peace. UNDP Associate Administrator Haoliang Xu connected peace to whether people have a real stake in their future through work, functioning businesses, resilient communities and institutions capable of delivery.

These remarks should not be read as an argument for less security. They are an argument for a more complete form of security: one that can defeat and deter violent actors while protecting the conditions in which lawful authority, livelihoods, public services and private investment can survive. That is the point at which the Framework becomes more than a development document. It becomes a regional security strategy.

Security is the Framework's enabling condition

The Framework is organised around five interconnected pillars: Regional Cooperation; Security; Humanitarian; Development; and Peacebuilding, Trust and Social Cohesion. Security appears as a distinct pillar, but its practical importance runs through every one of the other four.

Regional cooperation needs security coherence

Bandit networks, kidnappers, violent extremists, arms traffickers, illicit miners and other criminal actors do not stop at state boundaries. They exploit jurisdictional seams, weak communications, inconsistent enforcement and the time lost when separate authorities hold only fragments of the operating picture. Regional cooperation therefore has to mean more than periodic political consultation. It should produce shared threat assessments, interoperable early-warning arrangements, protected intelligence exchange, coordinated corridor security and clear procedures for incidents that cross state lines.

The Northwest Governors' Forum is valuable precisely because it offers a political mechanism for that coordination while states retain their constitutional responsibilities. The objective is not to blur authority. It is to make separate authorities work as one system against threats already operating regionally.

Humanitarian action requires secure access

Humanitarian assistance cannot reach displaced or vulnerable people if roads are unsafe, aid workers are exposed, supply chains are disrupted or communities fear retaliation. Security therefore shapes who can be reached, how quickly assistance arrives and whether support can continue after a crisis leaves the headlines. Protection of humanitarian personnel, distribution routes, facilities and information is not an adjacent concern. It is what turns humanitarian intent into reliable access.

Development requires protected continuity

A school that repeatedly closes, a health centre that cannot retain staff, a farm that cannot reach market and an infrastructure project that cannot operate safely are not merely development setbacks. They are security failures with long-term consequences. Persistent disruption erodes confidence in government, deepens unemployment, reduces legitimate revenue and creates openings for armed groups or criminal economies to provide coercive alternatives.

Security planning must therefore protect the continuity of essential services and productive activity. This means assessing threats before projects are located, designing resilience into facilities and corridors, establishing incident and evacuation procedures, and ensuring that early warning reaches the people authorised to act.

Peacebuilding depends on legitimate and trusted security

Trust is not a ceremonial addition to security; it is a source of operational advantage. Communities often see changes in movement, recruitment, coercion, trafficking and local tension before formal institutions do. Yet information will not flow if reporting exposes civilians, produces no visible response or leads to abuse.

The right model is not to turn civilians into vigilantes. It is to build safe and legitimate information pathways involving traditional institutions, women's groups, youth networks and community organisations, supported by confidentiality, witness protection, verification, feedback and accountable state action. Professional conduct and respect for rights are not constraints on effectiveness; they are foundations for the trust on which better intelligence depends.

Enforcement and prevention must reinforce one another

North-West Nigeria faces immediate threats that require capable, lawful and decisive security operations. Armed violence, kidnapping, violent extremism, sexual and gender-based violence, intercommunal conflict and cross-border criminality cannot be addressed through development language alone. Offenders, financiers, facilitators and illicit supply chains must face sustained pressure and justice.

But enforcement answers only one part of the problem. If governance gaps, unprotected communities, land and resource pressures, drug abuse, illegal mining, climate stress and criminal political economies remain untouched, security forces will repeatedly confront regenerated threats. Prevention is the work of changing that operating environment before violence becomes the most powerful organising force within it.

This distinction should guide resource allocation. Immediate threat response must be paired with intelligence-led prevention, local stabilisation, stronger justice systems, credible public services and economic interventions designed with a clear understanding of who benefits, who may resist and what new risks could be created. A road, mine, market or livestock programme is not automatically a peace intervention. It becomes one when its security, governance and conflict implications are deliberately managed.

Investment needs security, and security needs legitimate opportunity

The Regional Investment Prospectus makes the relationship explicit by connecting security coordination, conflict prevention, community resilience and investment protection. That is the correct framing. Investors assess far more than the probability of an attack. They assess whether people and goods can move, whether infrastructure will function, whether contracts and land arrangements are credible, whether communities support a project, and whether institutions can respond when conditions change.

Security is therefore part of the region's investment infrastructure. It protects physical assets, but it also protects confidence, continuity, personnel, data, supply chains and the social licence to operate. This is why security assessment should begin during project design rather than after capital has been committed or an incident has occurred.

The relationship also works in reverse. Productive and inclusive investment can widen legitimate livelihoods, strengthen local supply chains, expand government revenue and reduce vulnerability to recruitment by criminal economies. Those benefits are not automatic. They depend on transparent rules, fair access, conflict-sensitive design and visible local value. Poorly governed investment can deepen grievances; responsibly governed investment can become part of the region's resilience architecture.

SDG 16 gives the Framework a global language and a local test

The Sustainable Development Goal most directly aligned with the Framework is SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. The United Nations defines the goal as: "Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels."

The alignment is practical, not symbolic. The Framework's focus on reducing armed violence advances SDG target 16.1. Its attention to justice, dispute resolution and rule of law supports target 16.3. Its efforts against illicit arms, illegal mining, kidnapping finance and organised criminal economies speak directly to target 16.4. Its results framework, public reporting and governance arrangements reinforce target 16.6 on effective, accountable and transparent institutions. Community participation and stakeholder engagement support target 16.7, while institutional capacity building for violence prevention and the fight against terrorism and crime reflects target 16.a.

SDG 16 is the institutional spine, but the Framework also creates a regional delivery platform for SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). This is what makes the initiative so compelling: it does not treat peace as an isolated outcome. It treats peace and capable institutions as the platform from which every other development gain becomes more achievable and more durable.

Five security tests for implementation

The Framework's governance structures, technical working groups, results framework, resourcing plan and implementation planning are necessary. Their value, however, will be determined by whether they improve conditions on the ground. Five tests can help keep delivery focused.

The public scorecard should ultimately be outcome-led: fewer attacks and abductions; safer farms, schools, markets and transport routes; faster response and better case resolution; stronger border controls; reduced illicit financing; protected humanitarian access; reliable essential services; and improved confidence in legitimate institutions. Meetings, plans and funding announcements matter only when they contribute to those results.

The proper role of private security and risk advisory

Private security and risk-advisory firms can support this agenda, but they must not be presented as substitutes for statutory security institutions. Government retains responsibility for command, enforcement, justice, public accountability and the protection of constitutional rights.

The complementary contribution lies in capabilities that improve preparedness and decision-making: strategic risk assessment, open-source intelligence, early warning, school safety, critical-infrastructure protection, emergency planning, exercises and institutional capacity building. Used responsibly, these services can help states, development partners, communities and investors identify exposure earlier, design stronger safeguards and connect strategic plans to operating reality.

A framework worth supporting - and measuring

The North-West should not be permanently defined by insecurity. The UNGA81 engagement created international visibility, but visibility is useful only if it accelerates disciplined implementation at regional, state and local levels. The Framework's promise is that it gives seven states a common architecture through which security, humanitarian action, development, peacebuilding and investment can reinforce one another.

Its success will depend on keeping security both effective and legitimate: strong enough to confront violent actors, intelligent enough to prevent attacks, trusted enough to receive community information, and integrated enough to protect the institutions and economic activity on which lasting peace depends.

That is the opportunity before the region: to move from reaction to prevention, fragmentation to coordination, vulnerability to resilience, and fragility to opportunity. It is a direction worth supporting. It is also a commitment that should now be judged by measurable security impact.