Prof Usman Yusuf’s experience in going through 8 troubled northern states with his team supports my view that states are more guilty for the uncontrollable security situation in the country than the FGN. A security problem emerges because it has been allowed to emerge. If it has not been allowed to emerge, there would be no security problem to fight. States create the enabling environment for security problems to emerge, and then blame the FGN for not fighting it effectively. This is not to say that the FGN is not to blame for poor handling of the already existing security problems