Nigerian President Bola Tinubu told the country’s Catholic bishops on Tuesday that his government’s restructuring of the security forces would ultimately defeat terrorism, banditry and kidnapping, as he sought to defend his record on security and the economy roughly a year before the country’s next general election.
Receiving a delegation of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, led by its president, Archbishop Matthew Ndagoso of Kaduna, at the presidential villa in Abuja, Tinubu said he had approved an expansion of the armed forces, with new equipment and barracks underway. “We will defeat terrorism,” he told the bishops, adding that the message “should be part of your sermons.”
Tinubu said the government was pursuing victory over insurgents through enhanced intelligence gathering, institutional restructuring, improved logistics and greater attention to the welfare of frontline troops, and he called on the bishops and other religious leaders to publicly condemn violent attacks and support the government’s counter-insurgency effort. He argued that the deteriorating position of armed groups was itself evidence of progress, saying attackers were growing more desperate as they came under greater military pressure.
On the economy, Tinubu credited his administration’s reforms — including the removal of a long-standing fuel subsidy and changes to the foreign exchange system shortly after he took office in 2023 — with pulling Nigeria back from what he described as the brink of bankruptcy. He said state governments were no longer struggling to borrow from banks to cover salary payments, and pointed to what he called gradually improving conditions for pensioners as a sign of recovery.
The meeting also touched on Nigeria’s coming 2027 elections, with the bishops appealing to Tinubu to guarantee free, fair and credible polls as part of his political legacy. Tinubu defended the record of the Independent National Electoral Commission, saying the body had remained neutral and had not intimidated any political party, and suggested that opposition figures alleging otherwise were reacting to their own uncertainties rather than genuine misconduct by the commission.
Tinubu additionally addressed the long-running issue of mission schools seized from religious organizations under past military governments, telling the bishops that state governors retain constitutional authority over their return. He cited his own record on the issue as governor of Lagos State, when he said he returned all mission schools under his jurisdiction.
Nigeria has faced a sustained wave of attacks in recent years from Boko Haram and Islamic State-linked militants in the northeast, as well as armed groups commonly described as bandits operating across the northwest and north-central regions, alongside a longer-running separatist and communal violence in parts of the south and central belt.
