Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, – AFP/Getty Image
• Cites health challenge
From our news desk, Benin by Agency report
The minister of defence, Mohammed Badaru, has been reported to have resigned his appointment, with immediate effect.
Mid Monday, 1 December, 2025, the news of his resignation broke in the media.
He was said to have announced his resignation in a letter dated December 1, 2025 sent to the President, Bola Tinubu, citing health reasons. But reference to the nature of the health challenge was not stated.
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Responding, Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to the President on information and strategy, was quoted to have said in a statement on Monday that the resignation was accepted by Tinubu who thanked the former minister for his services to the nation.
“President Tinubu will likely inform the senate of Badaru’s successor later this week,” the statement reads.
His resignation comes amid heightened insecurity resurgence across the country, particularly in the northern part of Nigeria; which forced the President to declare a national security emergency, with plans to elaborate on its scope in due course.
In the search for a capable replacement, Christopher Musa, the former chief of defence staff (CDS), had a closed door meeting with the President at the State House earlier on Monday evening, it was reported.
As speculation has it that the meeting is a precursor to a major shake-up by President Tinubu in the prevailing heightened insecurity in the country.
The Nigerian nation is confronted by several security challenges; kidnappings for ransom by criminal gangs, an Islamist insurgency in the north, separatist violence in the south-east, and a crippling battle between herders and farmers in the centre, over access to land and water.
Badarau was a two-term governor of the northern State of Jigawa from 2015 to 2023, and was a key member of the President Tinubu’s campaign team.
He was appointed as a minister on August 21, 2023, by President Tinubu.
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