A deadly coalition of global-linked terror groups is plotting to carve out a parallel state within Nigeria, former presidential candidate, Dr Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has warned.

But Senate Committee Chairman on Water Resources, Abdul-Aziz Yari (APC, Zamfara West), assured the people of Benue State and Nigeria in general that President Bola Tinubu was not the type of leader given to empty threats, expressing confidence that the President would go after those behind the recent killings in Yelewata, Benue, and bring them to book.

Olawepo-Hashim raised the alarm in the wake of the grisly massacre of more than 200 civilians in Benue, an atrocity he described not as a symptom of a sophisticated and evolving insurgency strategy gripping vast swathes of the country.

“The killings in Benue last weekend are a tragic reminder of the complete breakdown of security in Northern Nigeria,” he declared. “What we are witnessing is no longer random violence, but a coordinated campaign by a mortal alliance of terror groups intent on establishing a rival state within our borders.”

According to the political heavyweight, this insurgent web has spread beyond the usual flashpoints in the North East, now suffocating the North West states of Zamfara, Kebbi, Kaduna, and parts of Katsina, and steadily creeping into the North Central and Southern regions, with ominous signs already emerging in Kwara, Ekiti, Ondo and Kogi states.

The consistent voice on national unity and security reform painted a dire picture: swathes of Nigeria’s rural heartlands have become ungoverned spaces where citizens are stripped of life, livelihoods and dignity.

He described the insurgents as “adaptive,” constantly shifting strategies and strengthening alliances, while the state stands idle or, worse, complicit.

“Since 2014, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has discovered the strategy to win elections,” he said bitterly. “But they have not found, or pretend not to find, the strategy to end insecurity and poverty.”

Yari, while condemning the “gruesome murder of the innocent and harmless” also sought “the whole-of-society” approach to combating insecurity. Addressing the Benue massacre, a development he further described as devastating, Yari said the President has not only shown responsible and responsive leadership by identifying with the people of Benue and also visiting the state, the Wednesday “on-the-spot actions he took were marks of a hands-on leader.”

According to the former governor of Zamfara State, “The President is capable of containing the situation and even if it means adopting totally extreme strategies to give every part of the nation peace, he would do it, because he was elected to secure the nation and the people and this much, he understands.”