BY ABDULHAMID AL-GAZALI, DECEMBER 07, 2025 | 06:09 PM
Gov. Zulum’s recent pronouncement has caused an exciting social media buzz and ruffled a lot of dead-haired feathers. Gov. Zulum said he has spent a staggering N100 billion in ensuring security in the state over the last year.
To many, that’s huge. And even those who tried to defend the amount only splashed the internet with images of vehicles the government had procured, giving them imaginary figures and numbers.
One of my friends once wrote in his curriculum vitae that he was ‘a very simplistic man’ in describing himself. By that, he probably meant to tell his potential employer that he was an easygoing man who would not cause any problems in the office—which is, may be, very important in today’s world where something called domestic violence exists. But given that one should not leave anything to chance, he may have been just quite honest, and therefore meant to, point blank, say he wasn’t one for complex problems.
Interestingly enough, I saw him on TV last year explaining the tax reform bill. Because everything economy is a bloody jargon, it is only those who do not understand it that can explain it, and it is actually when one does not understand it that it is truly understood. Seeing him, I understood the logic of his principal, who may have read his CV. Simplistic, and therefore, very likely not one to understand complex things, he was probably the best suited to explain it.
When you say you are simplistic, or your actions and commentaries prove you are one, it is not weakness. I think it is just an admission that you don’t want to critically analyze anything in your life. You don’t want the stress. Again, this reminds me of another of our acquaintances who asked everyone not to treat him seriously. He finds ambition, aspiration and serious life a huge burden; hence his choice. And when you are simplistic, which is by the way true of a majority of us today, one should not expect some kind of high output from your intellection, because you actually don’t intellectualize.
It is with this simplistic framework that most of us tried to analyze Gov. Zulum’s N100 billion claim. The most predictable thing for almost every mind to remember at first instance is normally the procurement of hardware—vehicles, gunboats, etc. Interestingly, this could be the least of them, most often than not. For example, in 2008 alone, embroiled in so many wars since 2000, the US government budgeted $300m for psychological operations, a euphemism for war propaganda. In 2024 recently, it spent $252.3 million in Military Information Support Operations, MISO, which is just one of the many budgetary allocations for war propaganda alone.
Beyond this, many countries buy sophisticated military equipment that they would never put to use. Sometimes the only purpose is to use it as a bargaining power. They only want to catch the headlines globally and across enemy quarters that they are now in possession of a particular hardware. Similarly, a lot others are purchased secretly, for other reasons. It is simply, even as we are in a democracy, not the business of everyone to know them.
Security spending may take the form of infrastructure, one or those that are entirely outside the woodworks of actual security. Let us take a housing project for an example. A housing project may seem unrelated to security from the surface, but it very much is. In short, the government would decide to say it is rebuilding houses and communities destroyed by terrorists; a very good argument for security spending. But there is even more.
First of all, the funds, when released to contractors, goes into the economy and keeps it vibrant. Money would exchange hands across a wide spectrum. The contractors would buy blocks, in which case some block factories would get some cash and hire / pay their laborers, instantly creating jobs and checkmating poverty for a number of families. It would be just as well for woods, iron, gravel, sharp sand and a lot more. Then artisans and laborers will be hired.
At the building sites, other economic activities also crop up. A food kiosk may spring up, then drinks, and even those things laborers normally can’t do without. I have been in construction, and I can tell its wide net. These would take a lot away from idling, and from being potential recruits for terrorists—well before the actual project is even delivered.
Similarly, knowing that these houses would be occupied by members of those communities, creates hope for some, solves housing challenge for others and ultimately supports urbanization processes. Now, this project could equally be a market, a school, a hospital or even a road, all of which have been going on in Borno.
Security spending may also take the form of providing relief to victims of attacks and vulnerable communities, as a way of guarding against potential recruitment by terror groups. If they are left in extreme situations, they may likely yield to the overtures of the terror network.
Beyond actual food handouts—which is largely now shouldered by the government—this spending can also come in the form of reopening farmlands and supporting communities with inputs. Many are privy to the several farmlands that have been cleared and reopened over the last two years, with massive solar powered irrigation facilities.
But security spending is beyond all of that. There are so many behind-the-scene activities that can never be known to the public. And it is better not, especially with our kind of mindset.
In wartime, the governor wouldn’t be wrong to technically describe every spending as a security expenditure. The entire state budget, in these periods, can be seen as a security budget because while some part of it goes into security directly to address existing problems, others ensure that we don’t compound or ignite new ones.
There is a deliberate misreading of the governor’s pronouncements. And in climes like ours, and times like this, everything one says—even one who is not a public office holder—is already a media disaster waiting to happen. It can only be considered safe when it ends up not being scrutinized—escaping the binoculars of our social media moon-sighters, mostly because there are other great click-harvesting subjects to discuss.
With terrible inflation, N100 billion is not what it used to be three years ago. Three years ago, that is N30 billion. This being said, citizens have their rights to scrutinize whatever they choose to scrutinize. If you consider this your citizenship duty, then go ahead and enjoy it.