This study examines the socio-political and semiotic representation of national security challenges in Nigerian political cartoons published between 2025 and 2026. Adopting a Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) framework, the paper investigates how cartoonists deploy a combination of visual imagery, linguistic codes and cultural symbolism to construct and critique narratives surrounding contemporary insecurity. The data for this study consist of purposively selected cartoons from three prominent Nigerian national newspapers: The Punch, Daily Trust, and Vanguard. Drawing on Kress and van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics, the analysis reveals how these dailies utilize satirical framing, caricature, and visual metaphors to reflect regional and national anxieties. The findings demonstrate that while The Punch and Vanguard frequently employ aggressive visual satire to critique state governance and counter-terrorism failures, Daily Trust provides deeply contextualized portrayals of localized socio-economic impacts and grassroots vulnerability. Ultimately, the study highlights how multimodal media functions as a vital democratic tool for public accountability, offering critical insights into the intersection of media linguistics, graphic satire and peace journalism in contemporary Africa.