Aide to FCT Minister Flags ‘Four Wives, 17 Kids on ₦60k’ as Driver of Northern Insecurity

Lere Olayinka, Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to the FCT Minister, has reignited debate on the root causes of insecurity in Northern Nigeria. He criticised low-income men who marry multiple wives and father dozens of children they cannot feed or educate. Olayinka warned that unregulated polygamy and child abandonment leave youngsters vulnerable to hunger and idleness. “Many of today’s terrorists and bandits were once innocent children roaming the streets, hungry, uneducated and forgotten,” he said. He pointed to scenes of children begging with plastic bowls along Abuja highways as harbingers of future catastrophe. “What can the government do if a gate-man earning ₦60,000 per month has four wives and 17 children?” he asked. He noted that similar concerns were raised in 2021 by a former Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, who blamed the failing Almajiri system for driving young boys into banditry and extremism.

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