Former minister of youth and sports, Solomon Dalung, has stated that the growing insecurity in northern Nigeria is linked to the rising number of out-of-school children.

Dalung said the absence of education, skills and hope has created a recruitment pool for terrorists, bandits and criminal networks.

In a social media post on Wednesday, the former minister said violent non-state actors thrive where the state fails to fulfil its responsibility to educate citizens.

Dalung said education remains the most effective tool for empowerment, social cohesion and the dismantling of extremism.

He recalled the late Ahmadu Bello’s view that education is power and central to long-term peace and security.

Dalung said many northern state governments have failed to prioritise education as a strategic investment, adding that insecurity is often treated as a temporary nuisance rather than a structural failure requiring systemic solutions.

Dalung criticised state governments for negotiating peace deals with armed groups instead of investing in schools and teachers.

He said such agreements are often secretive, lack accountability and offer only short-term calm, adding that the deals inadvertently legitimise criminality and reward violence.

He said paying off violent actors without dismantling recruitment pipelines only postpones conflict, even as he warned that children denied education today risk becoming future foot soldiers of insurgency.

He said the approach amounts to “negotiating peace with the left hand while declaring war with the right”.

Dalung said governments cannot claim to fight insecurity while starving institutions capable of permanently addressing it.

He said lasting peace cannot exist amid ignorance, unemployment and social exclusion, noting that true security will not come from ransom-style settlements or cosmetic peace agreements.

He said it requires deliberate and transparent investment in basic and secondary education across the north, adding thatschools must be safe, accessible and relevant to offer young people alternatives to violence.

He warned that neglecting education as a security imperative would sustain the cycle of violence, noting that society that neglects the classroom should not be surprised when the battlefield becomes its future.