Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
The North Central Development Commission has declared that the region cannot achieve meaningful development without treating security as part of its core infrastructure, issuing the warning as stakeholders unveiled a 20-year development blueprint designed to transform the region’s agricultural land, mineral resources, strategic location and human capital into jobs, investment and better living standards. The declaration came at the end of the NCDC Road Map and Stakeholders’ Development Summit in Abuja, where 862 participants attended physically and 49 online to consider the draft North Central 20-Year Development Plan for 2027 to 2046. Professor Mohammed Nuhu presented the communique adopted at the summit, and the message was unambiguous. “Security is productive infrastructure: agriculture, trade, investment, education and community life cannot thrive where people, assets and transport corridors remain unsafe,” the communique stated.
The summit’s framing of security as infrastructure represents a significant shift in how the region approaches its challenges. For decades, security in the North Central has been treated as a law enforcement matter, a problem to be managed by police and military deployments while development planning proceeded on a separate track. The NCDC is now arguing that the two cannot be separated. The summit called for a regional security and peacebuilding framework built around intelligence sharing, community engagement, early warning systems and stronger coordination among the states. It recommended the responsible use of satellite imagery, drones and geospatial intelligence, while urging that security considerations be built into the planning of farms, schools, markets, transport corridors and major infrastructure projects.
The context for this urgency is stark. The North Central region has been one of the most volatile parts of Nigeria for years, with banditry, kidnapping, farmer-herder conflicts, communal violence and organised crime creating a persistent climate of fear. In late August 2026, President Bola Tinubu convened a North Central Regional Security Summit in Makurdi, where he declared that military action alone could not bring lasting peace and identified competition over land and water, climate change, desertification, unresolved land-use issues, weak local dispute-resolution mechanisms and the proliferation of illicit weapons as the conditions sustaining violence. Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State, who hosted that summit, called for a community-centred approach and argued that the challenges facing the region could not be effectively tackled by individual states acting alone. The NCDC’s new blueprint takes those arguments and translates them into a formal planning document.
Keynote speaker Senator Professor Iyorwuese Hagher said the region must turn its strategic location, diversity, natural resources and human capital into shared prosperity. He called for greater value addition, human-capital development, technology, regional unity and disciplined implementation of the long-term plan. Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State, who chairs the North Central Governors’ Forum, presented the draft plan and stressed the need to move beyond extracting the region’s resources to processing them locally. Sule said the region’s leaders must translate the blueprint into measurable results, particularly by unlocking its agricultural and mineral potential. The economic agenda includes state-specific agricultural and livestock value chains covering mechanisation, irrigation, storage, processing, packaging, branding, logistics and export. The summit also called for the formalisation of artisanal mining and the creation of mineral-processing and manufacturing clusters, with the aim of retaining more value, employment and revenue within the region.
On infrastructure, stakeholders proposed an integrated network of roads, rail, inland waterways and logistics systems linking Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger and Plateau states with the Federal Capital Territory. The Abuja-Lokoja Road was identified for urgent consideration, alongside feasibility assessments for regional rail, Baro inland-port logistics, dry ports and modern freight systems. The plan also places digital connectivity alongside physical infrastructure, proposing wider broadband coverage across the six states and the FCT, including local government areas, wards and rural communities. It recommends artificial intelligence and digital-skills centres, teacher training, computer facilities in primary schools and programmes linking digital training directly to employment and emerging industries, with Abuja positioned as a regional digital and commercial hub.
On education and health, the summit called for measures to reduce school dropout, address teacher shortages and expand STEM, technical and vocational education. It also proposed stronger teaching hospitals, wider health-insurance coverage for vulnerable residents, better access to essential medicines and interventions addressing mental health and substance abuse. Women, young people and persons with disabilities are to receive targeted support through skills development, grants or affordable finance, market access and enterprise development. Climate and environmental risks also featured in the plan, with stakeholders calling for the mapping of flood, erosion, drought and mining hazards and the development of early-warning systems. The recommendations include flood-control measures, drainage and waterway interventions, erosion control and recovery programmes for communities repeatedly affected by disasters.
Senator Simon Bako Lalong, representing Plateau South and a former governor of Plateau State, urged the NCDC to work closely with stakeholders within and outside the region in confronting insecurity. Lalong, who was among those who advocated the commission’s establishment and participated in the legislative process that created it, said insecurity in the North Central is multifaceted and requires collaboration of governments at all levels, traditional and religious leaders, security agencies, development partners, civil society organisations and communities. He recalled his experiences as Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Governor, Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum and now as a Senator, noting that insecurity has remained a recurring challenge that continues to undermine development efforts. “The persistence of insecurity has affected agriculture, education, commerce, infrastructure, investment and other productive activities, thereby slowing down the development of the North Central and, by extension, the nation,” Lalong said. He encouraged the NCDC to make security a central component of its development planning and to establish strong partnerships to address the root causes and wider consequences of insecurity.
The commission’s financial foundation has been a subject of debate. The Senate approved a 140 billion naira budget for the NCDC for the 2026 fiscal year, mandating the commission to prioritise agriculture, security, infrastructure, health and education. But the Senate Committee on NCDC, chaired by Senator Titus Zam, expressed concern over low implementation of capital projects in the previous budget cycle and warned that the commission must strive for higher efficiency. In July 2026, the Senate described the Federal Government’s monthly allocation of 2.9 billion naira to the NCDC as grossly inadequate, with Zam calling on the commission to support ongoing efforts to tackle insecurity by complementing the work of security agencies and state governments. Governor Umaru Bago of Niger State has repeatedly called on the NCDC to prioritise insecurity and communal clashes, particularly farmer-herder conflicts, while also highlighting the impact of climate change on his state, where annual overflow from four hydroelectric dams destroys communities, farmlands and critical infrastructure.
The NCDC’s 20-year plan is ambitious, but its success will depend on factors beyond the commission’s control. The security framework it proposes requires sustained political will from six state governors, federal security agencies and community leaders. The infrastructure projects it envisions require funding that has not yet been fully secured. The economic transformation it targets requires private investment that will only flow if security improves. The plan’s architects are aware of this circularity. That is why the communique’s central message is so direct. Security is not a prerequisite that must be met before development begins. It is part of development itself, as essential as roads, power and water. The NCDC has said what many in the region have long known. Whether the commission and its partners can act on that insight is the question that will determine whether the North Central’s 20-year plan becomes a blueprint for transformation or another document shelved by circumstance.
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