INSECURITY CHALLENGES IN NIGERIA: WAY OUT OF SEEMING DESPONDENCY

 Gbolahan Samuel Moronfolu

Nigeria is faced with an unprecedented wave of different but overlapping security crises – from kidnapping to extremist insurgencies – almost every corner of the country has been hit by violence and crime.The scale of the insecurity threatens the very fabric of Nigerian society: “With every attack, human lives are lost or permanently damaged.“

National security is a premise for national economic growth and development of nations. This is because peaceful nations attract foreign investors while the domestic investors freely operate the economy with little or no tensions and apprehensions.

 Security is the pillar upon which every meaningful development could be achieved and sustained. Nigeria as a nation state has witnessed unprecedented series of agitations in the forms of kidnapping and abduction, armed robberies, bombing, and carnages of all forms and magnitude in the past decade and a half. 

With the coming to the scene by Boko Haram in 2002, the insecurity situation in Nigeria seemed to have assumed higher and more complex dimensions. A part from the frequency and intensity of deadly attacks and carnages, insecurity situation in Nigeria cuts across cities, towns and villages that there is hardly anywhere to run to for cover. Lives and properties are not safe for urban dwellers as well as for the rural dwellers. People live in apprehension almost every day.

Some have linked the recent surge of insecurity to the staggering poverty across the country. Youth unemployment currently stands at 32.5% and the country is in the middle of one of the worst economic downturns in 27 years. According to the UN, by the end of 2021, conflict with the group had led to the deaths of almost 450,000 people and forced millions from their homes. 

Boko Haram launches deadly raids, in some cases hoisting its flag and imposing extremist rule on local people. It levies taxes on farms and the sale of agricultural products.

 The once booming international fish market in the Chad Basin is now completely controlled by the group. The challenge is made harder by Nigeria’s ungoverned spaces – areas that are remote and largely ignored, where groups can torment rural communities without fear of reprisal.

Clashes between herders and farmers

There have been violent disputes between nomadic animal herders and farmers in Nigeria for many years. But disagreements over the use of land and water, as well as grazing routes, have been exacerbated by climate change and the spread of the Sahara Desert, as herders move further south looking for pasture. Thousands have been killed in clashes over limited resources.

Benue State, in the center of the country, has recorded the deadliest attacks. Recently, seven people were killed when gunmen opened fire on a camp for those fleeing the conflict. Some have also blamed herders for kidnapping people and demanding a ransom.

Banditry and kidnapping

One of the scariest threats for families in Nigeria is the frequent kidnapping of school children from their classrooms and boarding houses.

About 2,000 students have been abducted from their schools since December 2020, many only released after thousands of dollars are paid as ransom.

Some of the kidnappers are commonly referred to as “bandits”. These criminals raid villages, kidnap civilians and burn down houses. Attacks by bandits have forced thousands of people to flee their homes and seek shelter in other parts of the country.

The north-west is the epicenter of these attacks. In Zamfara state alone, over 7,000 people have been killed since 2012 and the attacks are still going on. Hundreds of schools were closed following abductions at schools in Zamfara and Niger state, where children as young as three years old were seized.

By every indication, Nigeria’s lucrative kidnapping industry is thriving – expanding into previously safe areas – and seemingly beyond the control of the country’s army. It poses a real threat to trade and education, as well as the country’s farming communities.

In order to ameliorate the incidence of crime, the federal government embarked on the criminalization of terrorism by passing the Anti-Terrorism Act in 2011, fundamental surveillance as well as investigation of criminal related offenses, heightening of physical security measures around the country aimed at deterring or disrupting potential attacks, strengthening of security agencies through the provision of security facilities and the development and broadcast of security tips in mass media.

Despite these efforts, the level of insecurity in the country is still high signifying a worsened state of insecurity in the country. With the lingering security challenges and the difficulty of the security apparatus of the government to respond promptly to attacks on citizenry being the front burner to guarantee safety and security to lives and properties of the citizenry in the country, the question that borders everyone in Nigeria today is “can there be assurance of security?” can people still sleep with their two eyes closed? Is the security of lives and properties achievable? It is evident that government at all levels is confronting the situation head-on and dealing with it decisively even though more effort has to be put in place.

Lately, Nigeria has been enmeshed in a firebox of insecurity leading to scores of deaths of innocent civilians, foreigners, some members of the nation’s security personnel, elected officials and many government workers. The insecurity challenge has assumed formidable dimensions forcing the country’s political and economic managers and, indeed the entire nation, to rue the loss of their loved ones, investments and absence of safety in most parts of the country. 

The number of violent crimes such as kidnappings, ritual killings, carjacking, suicide bombings, religious killings, politically-motivated killing and violence, ethnic clashes, armed banditry and others has increasingly become very worrisome. Government has tried everything from “force-for-force” to carrot-and-stick approach to diplomacy but the problem seems to rise with greater monstrosity like the proverbial phoenix. There has also been strong advocacy for a multi-stakeholder intervention to the insecurity question rather than lean on military options alone, but the problem has defied the present medication it is getting.

It will not be out of place to say that the current wave of general insecurity is fuelled by poverty which has made national security threat to be a major issue for the government and has prompted huge allocation of the national budget to security. No region has been spared the vicious scourge of conflict though their prevalence and intensity have not been the same in occurrences across the length and breadth of the nation. The current situation is further intensified by elements of globalization, natural disasters, proliferation of weapons and light arms, corruption, executive lawlessness and so on.

The economic costs of insecurity are enormous. People who joined the fighting forces, who are killed or flee, can no longer work productively; schools, power stations, and roads that are destroyed reduced the productive capacity of the economy. Further, displacement of people reduces the production of exports, thereby reducing foreign exchange earnings, import potentials and consequently further constraining output, leading to a decline in employment and earnings.

The menace remains a threat to governance and economic growth in Nigeria. Despite government’s burgeoning recurrent expenditure on internal security both at the National and State levels, individuals in their various rights, work places and houses spend heavily to provide security for their personal lives and properties. Despite these efforts, the menace keeps exacerbating. 

Thus in almost all parts of the country, there exist some levels of insecurity. We have seen instances of ethnic conflicts in some part of the North, kidnapping in almost all parts of the country, but prominent in South-South and West, militancy and pipeline vandalisation activities in the Niger delta, terrorism and religious extremism by Boko Haram in North East, agitations for self-determination by IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) and MASSOB (Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra) in South East, herdsmen disturbances in the North and Central, ritual killings in the South West and Eastern security network rampage and attacks on Police Stations and the community and other political and economic disturbances. These disturbances and insecurities in its various forms affect economic growth.

*Moronfolu  is a seasoned security consultant with many years of security and policing experience. FELLOW,  Fourth Estate Professional Society (FFPS), he has also partaken in peace keeping operations within and outside the  country and has flair for general security education.