Nollywood actor Lateef Adedimeji has lamented that the violence across Nigeria has breached the borders of the South West, turning a once stable region into a landscape of fear.

According to him, from the harrowing mass abduction and tragic killing of an educator in Oyo State to the increasingly perilous highways of Ekiti, Ondo, and Ogun, the normalisation of terror is taking root.

The actor stated that security collapse raises serious questions, especially since the Amotekun Commanders across the South West collectively maintained in 2025 that the region’s forests would never be allowed to serve as permanent hideouts or bases for criminals, also South West Governor’s forum stated that there was “no empirical evidence of bandits in the South West, but security measures are being strengthened to prevent any incidents”.

“How then did heavily armed bandits penetrate these heavily guarded corridors so deeply, rendering our spaces entirely unsafe for everyday citizens?” Lateef Adedimeji asked in a statement on Wednesday.

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He reminded the Executive Governors of the region about the title of ‘Chief Security Officer’, which they hold, noting that it must cease to be a mere protocol ornament.

“You are the Number One Citizens of your states, bound by a sacred constitutional covenant to protect the lives and livelihoods of your people. Standard press releases of condemnation and reactive condolences are no longer acceptable; we need actions. When citizens cannot farm, travel, or send their children to school without the looming threat of death, the fundamental contract between the government and the governed is entirely broken.

“True leadership demands immediate, proactive coordination. Governors must take absolute charge of their internal security by sitting down with their state Commissioners of Police (CP) to directly engage the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and open up every other necessary channel,” he said.

The actor called for a unified front in which the police, military, local security outfits, and indigenous intelligence networks seamlessly come together to systematically secure our forests from external forces. He said history will judge the leaders not by the infrastructure they build, but by how fiercely and effectively they unite these forces to defend the human lives meant to utilise them.

(The Guardian)