ABUJA, (Reuters) – Nigerian President Bola Tinubu named new homeland security and foreign intelligence chiefs on Monday, a week after their predecessors resigned abruptly, as Africa’s most populous nation fights a northeastern insurgency and rampant kidnappings.

Mohammed Mohammed, who headed Nigeria’s mission to Libya, will lead the National Intelligence Agency. Adeola Ajayi will helm the Department of State Security.

The previous agency chiefs, appointed by ex-President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018, gave no reason for their resignations.

They could have taken the fall for the country’s poor security performance, or have been purged along with government personnel from the north to replace with Tinubu’s own Yoruba ethnic stock, said Confidence MacHarry, lead security analyst at consultancy SBM Intelligence.

Following incessant attacks by armed groups, Tinubu is boosting intelligence gathering to deal with nationwide kidnappings for ransom by armed gangs and a more than decade-old insurgency in the northeast.

(Reporting by Ope Adetayo and Felix Onuah; Editing by Chijioke Ohuocha and Richard Chang)