Nigeria's February Death Toll Climbs to 323 as Violence Spreads Across Multiple States
Amnesty International reports 323 deaths in the first 20 days of February across six Nigerian states, as bandit attacks, kidnappings, and police violence compound the nation's security crisis.
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Twenty days into February, Nigeria has recorded at least 323 violent deaths across its territory, according to Amnesty International, marking one of the deadliest months in recent memory and exposing what the rights organization describes as the Tinubu administration's failure to develop an effective counter-insurgency strategy.
The grim tally spans six states—Benue, Katsina, Kwara, Kebbi, Niger, and Zamfara—and reflects a security landscape where violence has become routine, touching both rural communities and urban centres. The deaths come from bandit raids, kidnappings, and even state security forces turning weapons on civilians they are sworn to protect.
Zamfara Massacre Claims 30 Lives
The most devastating single incident occurred in Zamfara State, where bandits killed 30 people and abducted several others in a community attack. Channels Television reports that the Lakurawa group, a militant faction that has terrorized the northern reaches of Zamfara and neighbouring Sokoto State, is blamed for the assault. The group has established a pattern of coordinated raids on defenceless villages, often arriving on motorcycles in the pre-dawn hours when resistance is minimal.
Zamfara has become emblematic of Nigeria's security paralysis. Despite military operations and state-level negotiations with armed groups, the violence continues unabated. Residents in affected communities face an impossible choice: remain and risk death, or flee and abandon their livelihoods. The latest massacre adds to a mounting death toll that has hollowed out entire villages across the state's northern corridor.
Urban Violence and Police Accountability
Violence is not confined to rural battlegrounds. In Lagos, the commercial capital, the Police Command apprehended its own officers after they allegedly shot and killed two passersby in the Alagbado area. Vanguard News confirmed that the officers involved in the shooting have been taken into custody, though details about the circumstances remain scarce. The incident underscores a troubling pattern of extrajudicial killings by security personnel, often during routine patrols or at checkpoints.
Lagos also witnessed a fatal tanker accident that claimed one life, according to the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA). The agency's Permanent Secretary confirmed the death in an official statement, though the incident represents a different category of violence—the infrastructural failures and traffic chaos that make Nigeria's roads among the deadliest in Africa.
In Ondo State, suspected gunmen stormed Olaribigba Estate in Ilu-Abo around 9:45 p.m. on February 20, abducting a couple, Jamiu Olawale and his wife, while shooting a neighbour during the raid. Peoples Gazette reports that the brazen attack on a residential estate signals how kidnapping syndicates have grown emboldened, now targeting middle-class neighbourhoods previously considered secure. The couple's whereabouts remain unknown, and no ransom demand has been publicly reported.
A Crisis Without Strategy
Amnesty International's assessment cuts to the heart of Nigeria's security dilemma. The organization stated plainly that the Tinubu government "lacked effective plan to end insurgency," a damning indictment of an administration that inherited multiple security crises—Boko Haram in the northeast, banditry in the northwest, separatist agitation in the southeast, and farmer-herder conflicts across the middle belt.
President Bola Tinubu, who took office in May 2023, promised security sector reform and increased defence spending. Yet the February death toll suggests that tactical responses—military deployments, aerial bombardments, checkpoint proliferation—have failed to address the structural drivers of violence: poverty, unemployment, porous borders, illegal arms proliferation, and the erosion of state authority in vast swathes of territory.
The geographic spread of violence is particularly concerning. Attacks now occur simultaneously across states separated by hundreds of kilometres, suggesting either coordination among armed groups or a general collapse of security infrastructure. Benue's farmer-herder clashes differ in character from Zamfara's banditry, yet both produce similar outcomes: displacement, death, and communities living under siege.
The Human Cost
Behind the statistics are families shattered, communities emptied, and a generation growing up with violence as the norm. The 323 deaths in February represent fathers who will not return from their farms, mothers abducted from their homes, children caught in crossfire. Each number in Amnesty International's tally carries a name, a history, a network of grief that ripples outward.
Nigeria's security crisis has economic dimensions as well. Farmlands across the northwest and middle belt lie fallow because cultivation invites attack. Kidnapping has become an industry, with ransoms financing further violence. Businesses factor security costs into every decision, and foreign investment remains tepid in regions where the state cannot guarantee basic safety.
As February draws to a close, there is little indication that March will bring respite. The patterns are established, the armed groups entrenched, and the government's responses remain reactive rather than strategic. Until Nigeria addresses the root causes of its security emergency—governance failures, economic exclusion, and the proliferation of weapons—the monthly death tolls will continue to climb, each number a testament to lives lost and a state struggling to protect its citizens.