The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume, and Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, have urged religious leaders to take a more active role in Nigeria’s security architecture.
They said terrorism, banditry, radicalisation, hate speech and election-related tensions require a whole-of-society response.
They spoke at the grand finale of the 2026 Synod of the Charismatic Bishops Conference of Nigeria on Wednesday in Abuja.
Akume said national security could no longer be left solely to the armed forces, police and intelligence agencies.
‘National security cannot be the responsibility of soldiers, police officers and intelligence agencies alone. Security also begins with trust, social cohesion, early warning systems and responsible speech,’ he said.
Akume said the government had recorded ‘encouraging intelligence-led breakthroughs,’ including the rescue in August of 308 abducted citizens in Kwara and Niger states.
The SGF challenged the Church to regard peacebuilding as part of national security, urging bishops and pastors to help young Nigerians resist extremist recruitment, political violence and hate speech, while strengthening community early-warning networks and supporting victims of violence.
Idris, who also addressed the gathering, warned religious leaders against allowing Nigeria’s security challenges to be portrayed as a religious war.
‘Terrorists and criminal groups have attacked Nigerians of different faiths and backgrounds, and their objective remains the same: to create fear and undermine our national unity. We must not allow that to happen,’ he said.
The minister said the Federal Government had strengthened intelligence gathering, inter-agency cooperation, military operations and international security partnerships to confront terrorist and criminal networks.
He said security forces had continued to put pressure on criminal groups across the North-East, North-West and North-Central regions, adding that approximately 1,000 terrorists were reported eliminated in the North-East during the first quarter of 2026.
Idris said the enormous influence of pastors, bishops and other religious leaders placed a responsibility on them to promote truth, peace and responsible citizenship, particularly as misinformation and hate speech could spread rapidly through social media.
He urged religious leaders to discourage messages capable of creating fear and division, warning that smartphones and other digital platforms should not become tools for spreading misinformation.
The officials also linked the security challenge to the 2027 elections, warning against the weaponisation of religion and ethnicity.
‘Elections will come and go, but Nigeria must remain,’ Akume said, urging religious leaders to oppose vote-buying, hate speech and political violence.
He added: ‘An election is a contest for office. It must never become a war for survival.’
Idris similarly urged Nigerians to preserve national unity regardless of their political preferences, stressing that religious leaders had a responsibility to ensure that political competition did not translate into violence.