By Edward Auta
The shocking statement credited to Professor Yusuf Usman, erstwhile Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), on Friday, 19 December 2025 – wherein he reportedly rejected an alleged plan by the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa (rtd.), to wage war against the Fulani people, raises serious concern. Its ethnic colouration and apparent attempt to incite the Fulani populace against the new Minister of Defence smack of mischief and deliberate provocation.
To put things in the right perspectives, neither General Musa, the Ministry of Defence, nor the Federal Government of Nigeria has threatened to wage war against the Fulani people. On the contrary, General Musa, from his days as Chief of Defence Staff, has been consistent and vocal about deploying state might against enemies of the Nigerian state, regardless of identity, while ensuring they are brought to justice. This approach has contributed significantly to improvements in national security and has earned widespread acceptance among Nigerians across ethnic and religious lines, including Fulani communities and respected Northern leaders and Islamic clerics.
Professor Yusuf Usman’s comments, therefore, raise three critical questions:
1. Whether he believes or wants Nigerians to believe that insecurity in the North is a Fulani agenda, sponsored and executed by Fulani people.
2. Whether, by his statement, he has demonstrated sufficient patriotism and commitment to the success of the current administration’s efforts to end the cycle of insecurity that has ravaged Nigeria for over a decade.
3. Whether by his conduct, he does not appear to sympathise with bandits, and if so, he should not be invited for questioning.
The truth is, anyone who has keenly followed Nigeria’s security challenges over the years can attest to how, under the previous administration, vast parts of the North became rivers of blood, highways turned into kidnappers’ dens, and thousands of communities were displaced, leaving millions as refugees in their own country; and how under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu – and during General Musa’s tenure as Chief of Defence Staff – the narrative began to change. For example, between June 2023 and the present, over ten notorious bandit commanders have been neutralised, while hundreds of communities previously displaced or held captive by bandits have been liberated.
In addition, President Tinubu’s recent declaration that “any armed group or gun-wielding non-state actors operating outside state authority will be regarded as terrorists,” and that “bandits, militias, armed gangs, armed robbers, violent cults, forest-based armed groups and foreign-linked mercenaries will all be targeted,” clearly aligns with General Musa’s long-standing security philosophy. His further assurance that the administration will pursue “all those who perpetrate violence for political or sectarian ends, as well as those who finance and facilitate their evil schemes,” resonates deeply with the wishes and aspirations of the majority of Nigerians.
Unfortunately, this position stands in sharp contrast to Professor Yusuf Usman’s apparent doctrine of appeasing/pampering bandits, which he claims serves Fulani interests. Without a doubt, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ushered in a new phase in Nigeria’s security and defence architecture – one that is anchored on the long-established principle that attack is often the best form of defence. General Musa, alongside the nation’s defence hierarchy, has a duty to translate the President’s words into action by taking the fight to terrorist and bandit strongholds, so that we do NOT have to contain them in our homes or on our highways anymore.
Similarly, both serving and former public officials, like Professor Yusuf, who sympathise with terrorists or bandits, or who undermine government policy through reckless and divisive statements (as he has done), should either make a detour and immediately realign with national objectives or made to feel the full wrath of the law.
May Nigeria Succeed!
~ Edward John Auta is a Historian and Public Affairs Analyst from Kaduna State
autaedward@gmail.com
