The Federal Government has said terrorism in Nigeria, especially in the North-West, is increasingly driven by economic interests rather than ideology.

Speaking at a policy roundtable to curb the expansion of insurgencies in the North-West and North-Central in Abuja on Wednesday, the National Coordinator, National Counter-Terrorism Centre, Maj. Gen. Adamu Laka insisted that ideological motivations are no longer the primary driver of terrorism.

“We keep on talking of ideology, ideology. What we have today is no more ideological terrorism; it’s more of economic terrorism. What is happening in the North-West is more economic than ideological,” Laka said.

Laka said military operations alone would not resolve the security crisis, stressing the need for a combination of military action and non-kinetic measures involving government agencies and other stakeholders.

“The National Counter-Terrorism Centre believes that kinetic efforts alone cannot solve the issue of insecurity. It has to be a mixture of both kinetic and non-kinetic,” he said.

He added that the centre was pursuing a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to address the threats.

According to him, security agencies are recording successes through joint operations, including an operation conducted in Katsina State in September.

Laka expressed optimism that continued collaboration among security agencies would help restore peace, noting that attention was increasingly being directed towards the North-West and North-Central regions following improvements in the North-East.

“We’re making headway. There have been successes in various sectors. You can see the peace that is currently existing. There is a higher level of peace in the Northeast. We are facing the Northwest now, [as well as] the North-Central. We should just have more patience and more confidence.

“It’s something that is very dear to the President and Commander-in-Chief and the National Security Adviser, and we’ll do all our best to ensure that peace returns to Nigeria,” he said.

Also speaking, a senior researcher at the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies, Dr Oyewole Oginni, said armed groups in the North-West were increasingly building relationships with existing criminal networks to sustain their operations.

Oginni explained that some groups negotiated with bandits, while others collaborated in kidnapping operations, including transferring abducted victims and sharing ransom proceeds.

He said understanding the financial networks behind the violence was crucial to dismantling the groups.

Oginni urged authorities to investigate how ransom proceeds were distributed, who supplied weapons to armed groups and the individuals benefiting from their activities.

He also identified illegal mining, particularly in gold-producing areas, as a source of funding for armed groups, noting that some local residents were recruited to mine for them.

The researcher said kidnapping had developed into an industry involving multiple actors, with those who collected ransom payments not necessarily being the same individuals who carried out the abductions.

Earlier, the Sokoto State Deputy Governor, Idris Gobir, said the state government had spent billions of naira on security infrastructure between January and August, adding that it had provided equipment to support security operations.

He described insecurity as a major challenge facing the country and said the roundtable offered stakeholders an opportunity to develop strategies to restore peace.