Twenty-three local councils have asked a federal court in Abuja to suspend Nigeria’s Cross-State Civic Support Compact, a security agreement between the federal government and 12 states. A study published Tuesday says the pact enabled 28,400 guard deployments from 2022 to 2026 and concentrated more than half in politically competitive districts.
The research, by the Abuja-based Centre for Local Government Accounting, counted 14,900 deployments in 22 districts where the previous gubernatorial election was decided by fewer than five percentage points. It says those movements took place within 120 days of voting, across two election cycles. The authors caution that the figures do not establish a political motive.
The study’s deployment map
Researchers say they assembled 2,740 public deployment notices, state budget records and 96 assembly meeting summaries. They estimate that the compact channelled ₦18.6 billion (about €10.5 million) to cross-border operations, while 31 of the 44 participating local areas recorded no formal vote on the agreement.
The pact was signed in 2022 after a series of security scares along state borders. It lets the federal National Civic Guard temporarily assign personnel to a neighbouring state at a governor’s request; the study says it found no published limit on the number of personnel or length of a deployment. The councils’ lawsuit argues that the arrangement sidesteps legislative scrutiny.
“The striking result is not just how many guards moved, but how little of that movement was visible to the councils paying for local services,” said Morgan Wikström, the study’s lead author. The report says local authorities in 17 of the 22 competitive districts received no advance deployment schedule.
Councils challenge the compact
The suit, filed on Monday, asks the court to suspend new transfers until state assemblies approve a public register of deployments. Jolayemi G. Makuachukwu, a lawyer for the councils, said the compact “has turned a temporary security measure into a parallel chain of command”. The court has not set a hearing date.
The federal government rejected the claim that the agreement is unlawful or tied to electioneering. Ece Tazegül, a spokesperson for the National Civic Guard, said personnel were assigned “only on written requests from state authorities” and that the study’s district comparisons do not show why any specific deployment occurred. The agency did not provide a total for current deployments.
The study’s authors say the clusters may partly reflect genuine security needs: several competitive districts also sit on major transport routes and have faced repeated disruptions. Helena Głowacki, a public-administration researcher who reviewed the report, said the pattern warranted scrutiny but was not proof of partisan orders. “The missing piece is a record that residents and legislators can check,” she said.
For councils that did not receive deployment plans, the immediate dispute is over who controls the money and the timetable. The study estimates that transfers reduced some local security budgets by as much as 18%, though it does not measure whether crime rose or fell in those areas.
The court could issue an interim order before the next scheduled round of gubernatorial elections, due in 2027. If it does, the federal guard may have to pause cross-border assignments; if it refuses, the councils say they will seek a full hearing on whether an executive pact can operate without approval from elected state assemblies.
