The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), Nigeria’s leading research and investigative advocacy group campaigning for public and citizens’ security and safety, has raised two “million dollar unanswered questions” which it says Nigeria’s security and intelligence chiefs must answer with regard to the menace of insecurity in the country.

Apart from echoing the bombshell-question asked by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu had during his June 18, 2025 visit to Benue State in connection with last week’s massacre in the Yelewata area of the state, Intersociety, in a statement issued in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria, yesterday, June 21, 2025, asked the country’s Security and Intelligence Chiefs: “Whose C-in-C Operational Code on Fulani Jihadist Terrorism in Nigeria or any part thereof is in use; that of C-in-C Tinubu or Former C-in-C Buhari”?

According to Intersociety in the statement signed by Lead-Researcher/Head, Emeka Umeagbalasi; Head, Democracy and Good Governance, Chinwe Umeche, Esquire; Head, Field Data Collection and Documentation Department, Comrade Samuel Kamanyaoku; and Deputy Head, Policing and Law Enforcement Department, Comrade Chibueze Nwajiaku: “This question of ours is pertinent going by findings arising from our several years of research and investigations on religious motivated killings by Muslim jihadists in the country and roles played by the country’s security forces particularly the military. We have produced several reports on armed state actor and armed non-state actor mass killings across Nigeria since August 2015; most prominent of which is the “Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In The East”; a 282-Page Special Report, released in Enugu on Dec 22, 2024”(https://intersociety-ng.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/NIGERIA-OCEAN-OF-INNOCENT-BLOOD-FLOWING-IN-THE-EAST-oringinal_11zon.pdf).

“It is also strikingly important to disclose that our general research and investigative findings between 2017 and before June 2023 have found that one of the greatest security threats and challenges facing Nigeria is gross partisanship of the Nigerian security forces particularly the military; to the extent some friendly top security officers who pleaded not to be named, had shared such fears with our leadership and field researchers. We had in the course of our investigations in places like Taraba, Kebbi, Niger, Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Benue, Kogi and some South-East and South-South States been told that “there exists a C-in-C operational code handed down by President Muhammad Buhari (as he then was) to security and intelligence chiefs which specifically directed them to protect and not to touch or arrest members of the criminal Fulani population including jihadists among them”. As recently as a month ago, a serving Local Government Chairman in Benue State cried out on social media and narrated how he confronted security chiefs over killings by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and their allies in his Local Government part of Benue State and was brazenly told by the security chiefs that “Abuja has not given them order to deal with killer herdsmen”.”

Intersociety also identified itself with President Tinubu’s June 18 question to his Service Chiefs: “Why have no arrests been made?”

Commenting on the aftermath of the question, the rights group said: “It is not only that the question threw the physically present security and intelligence chiefs off balance and rattled them including Chief of Defense Staff, Lt Gen Musa who was not only rattled but appeared to have rushed to his computer and dusted up stored information of “number of terrorists killed (neutralized) and arrested” in Nigeria’s six geopolitical regions “in the past two years”. The President’s million dollar question, unanswered by his appointed security and intelligence chiefs, till date, has therefore gladdened our heart for the first time since the President’s emergence as sixth civilian president of Nigeria following the 2023 armada of electoral fraud that brought him into office.

“We are also in strong condemnation of despicable and reckless resort to diversionary narratives and tactics by the military whenever serious matters of national security threats or breaches are raised. As a matter of fact, they are nothing short of brazen promotion of false gallantry and marketization of operational failures and diversionary and questionable narratives or tactics. For instance, “what has the President Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s million dollar unanswered question to his appointed Security and Intelligence Chiefs got to do with: Benue massacre locals sheltered their attackers, gave them food, women? Also what has it got to do with: “6,260 terrorists and criminals neutralized (killed) in joint operations nationwide over the last two years and 14, 138 suspects arrested? A competent, unbiased and operationally efficient military chief should not have resorted to such vexatious and psychologically brainwashing diversionary narratives. Such an egg-head military chief should have swung into operational action; more so when the marauders are not far from his operational grips as they are very easy to be apprehended and brought to justice.

“Since the Chief of Defense Staff, Gen Musa Christopher Gwabin is operationally aware of the fact that “Benue massacre locals have been sheltering their attackers and giving them food and women”, why have the CDS and other security and intelligence chiefs still refused to arrest them (attackers)? Is it not correct to say that this is another diversionary measure or tactic aimed at hunting down the defenseless victims of the serial massacres and hound them into indefinite detention through indiscriminate and arbitrary arrests, from where they will end up being falsely labeled as attackers and their attackers as victims?”