Nigeria witnessed a sharp escalation in insecurity in May 2026, with 842 people killed and 279 others abducted in various violent incidents recorded nationwide, according to new figures released by Nextier.
Data from the organisation’s Nigeria Violent Conflicts Database showed that 156 violent incidents occurred during the month, highlighting the continued security challenges facing the country.
According to a statement made available on Sunday, June 21, the report indicated that the situation worsened significantly compared to May 2025, with violent incidents increasing by 51.5 per cent, fatalities rising by 90.1 per cent and kidnappings growing by 19.7 per cent.
The statistics were released alongside a policy analysis that questioned whether peacebuilding programmes implemented across the country are producing meaningful results.
In the publication titled The Travails of Measuring Peacebuilding in Fragile Contexts, Nextier researchers Jamilu Musa and Dr Chukwuma Okoli argued that many interventions aimed at reducing violence are difficult to evaluate because of weak monitoring systems and the absence of clear impact measurements.
The analysts noted that governments, development agencies and local communities continue to invest resources in peacebuilding activities, yet determining whether those efforts are actually reducing conflict remains a major challenge.
According to them, peacebuilding success should not be measured solely by the number of meetings, sensitisation campaigns or dialogue sessions conducted.
Instead, they said the focus should be on whether communities experience less violence, stronger social ties, greater trust in institutions and improved resilience against future conflicts.
The researchers warned that growing pressure on international funding makes it increasingly important to demonstrate tangible outcomes from peacebuilding initiatives.
They linked declining donor support to global crises, including the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and instability in the Middle East, which have shifted international priorities and funding commitments.
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Musa and Okoli also observed that changing economic policies in major donor countries have contributed to reduced support for peacebuilding projects in developing nations.
The report identified four key areas for assessing peacebuilding performance: trends in violent conflict, levels of social cohesion, quality of governance and inclusion, and community resilience.
Conflict trends, the researchers explained, help track incidents such as kidnappings, terrorism and communal clashes.
Social cohesion measures trust and cooperation among groups, while governance indicators assess public confidence in institutions and the participation of women, youths and vulnerable populations in decision-making processes.
Resilience indicators, they said, examine how effectively communities can prevent disputes from escalating into violence.
The analysts also highlighted several obstacles to measuring peacebuilding outcomes, including limited baseline data, insecurity in conflict zones, rapidly changing conditions, short funding cycles and the difficulty of quantifying issues such as trust and perceptions of safety.
“Peace is not static; it is a work in progress involving both reducing conflict and increasing development,” the analysts said.
To improve assessment, they recommended the use of modern evaluation methods such as outcome harvesting, conflict-sensitive monitoring, perception surveys, social network analysis and participatory evaluation approaches.
They further called on federal and state governments to adopt standardised frameworks for measuring peacebuilding efforts, using indicators focused on security, inclusion, trust and resilience.
The researchers also urged closer collaboration among security agencies, humanitarian organisations, development partners and peacebuilding groups to strengthen evidence gathering and improve coordination.
According to them, the effectiveness of peacebuilding should ultimately be judged by whether communities become safer, more united and better prepared to withstand future security threats.