Security and the 2023 General Election

BY JOHNSON OLAWUMI

With the emergence of presidential candidates for the 2023 Elections, one issue that will certainly be in the front burner as campaigns by political parties commence is security. That has been the pattern since the 2015 general election for obvious reasons. In Nigeria today, the level of insecurity is both alarming and atrocious. It is an incontrovertible fact that the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan made appreciable progress in the management of our economy. But he lost his re-election the security challenge that has for more than a decade confronted Nigeria. Even though President Muhammadu Buhari was elected to tackle the problem, Nigerians no safer today than they were seven years ago.  As the lawyers will say, ‘res ipsa loquitur’; the fact speaks for itself.  Despite the promises made on security in 2015 and 2019, and the claims of enormous spending on defence in the last seven years, Nigeria remains largely unsafe for its citizens.       

While some significant progress has been made since 2015, facts on the ground suggest that we are still a troubled nation. There is so much violence today across Nigeria and in different shades: Kidnappings, ritual killings, abductions, herders and settlers’ conflicts, attacks on security agents, cultism, and other forms of criminalities. Indeed, never in our history has it been so unsafe and insecure to travel from one state to the other. And when one considers the quantum of promises made to staunch this barrage of insecurity, with a retired military General in the saddle, Nigerians must be worried and apprehensive of who and what the manifestos of those aspiring to lead from May 2023 will be.   

This time around, the voters must not be deceived with such vague and catchy promise of ‘I will lead from the front’ when it comes to selling their agenda on security. As the political parties hit the field, Nigerians must be mindful of the words of Teresa Heinz that “political campaigns are the graveyard of real ideas, and the birthplace of empty promises.” Snooping through several security debates and commentaries in recent times, not a few discerning minds will search for so long to identify where exactly lies the issues and problems in making Nigeria safe and secure.   

Statutorily, many of the security challenges that are prevalent in Nigeria today falls within the responsibilities of the police to deal with. Over the years, persistent neglect of the police coupled with its perennial misuse have combined to derail and debauch its capacity to meet the security demands of the people. The increasing jumble of violence across the country further calls to question the capability of the police to carry out its functions effectively. The fact is that policing has virtually collapsed in Nigeria today. How best can one justify this than the ominous fact that the military is at present deployed in 34 of the 36 states in the country, saddled with tasks that ordinarily should be performed by the Police. That many Nigerians have lost confidence in the police is no longer in doubt but that is a major challenge. For anyone aspiring to lead this country now, a complete reform of the police must be prime in his agenda, and this must be a focal issue in his campaign. 

Questions must be asked about how such a politician intends to restore confidence of the people in the police, and his plans for retraining, provision of equipment and general welfare of the men. The pendent issue of state police deserves intense conversation, and the people must draw commitment for its implementation. Whatever may be the constitutional impediments against the use of state police could be urgently straightened and perhaps a pilot test in one state in each of the geopolitical zones could provide an assessment of its effectiveness or otherwise.    

It is common knowledge that violence and criminalities have continued to fester due to the seamless access to weapons from across our borders as well as unhindered movement of criminals in and out of the country. Officially, Nigeria is said to have 84 approved land border control points but with over 1,400 illegal border points. The fact, however, is that the entire stretch along the Northern boundaries with Benin Republic, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon are all potential crossing points for illegal arms dealers and other criminals due to the dry Sahel vegetation and open Savannah terrain. Security experts have continuously warned that unless the issue of border security is addressed, the success expected in the fight against banditry would at best remain a mirage. 

As the presidential hopefuls keep reeling out vague and abstract promises (some unimaginable), Nigerians must take them to task on the prime issue of border security. In the words of the former American President, Donald Trump, ‘when you undermine border security, you are undermining human rights and human dignity’ and ‘a nation that cannot secure its border is not a nation’. The next administration must dig deep and examine models adopted elsewhere around the world in keeping their borders safe. It must engage Nigerians especially the security agencies on whether we need a separate border protection force and how our border security framework could be more technologically driven and dependent.     

Nigeria’s large landmass of about 923,768 square kilometres presents it with a great opportunity for agriculture, mining, and several other human activities. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Nigeria currently uses only half of its 71 million hectares of available farmland, and even at that not efficiently. The implication is that the country is burdened with large areas of ungoverned spaces which provide breeding grounds for armed bandits, international criminal gangs, terrorist organisations and undocumented immigrants to incubate and thrive. The recent upsurge in security challenge has brought attention to the opportunities that these ungoverned areas offer to insurgents and bandits in the Sambisa Forest in Borno State, Kuyambana and Ajja Forests in Zamfara, Birnin Kogo Forest in Katsina and Guma Forest in Nasarawa State.   

Having large mass of ungoverned areas in the hands of armed bandits is a precursor to becoming a failed state, hence government, at all levels must assert its authority and firm control on all forests and rural areas. The existing capability of the forest guards needs to be strengthened so it could effectively provide first layer of security under an integrated approach that would see the police and other security agencies providing swift backup response. Nigerians must demand for the plans and strategies to convert the vulnerability of these forests into opportunity for growth and development.   

Meanwhile, if a capability gap assessment is to be carried out today on the capacity of the military and other security agencies, one aspect that will draw concern is the combat efficiency of the military especially manpower and equipment. Using the data from the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Nigeria with a population of nearly 200 million people has a total active military personnel of about 190,000. The reality of this figure becomes clear if it is juxtaposed against figures from countries with population and security threats like that of Nigeria. For instance, Pakistan with a population of about 230 million people has a military manpower strength of 1,495,000 personnel out of which about 700,000 are in active service.  In Africa, Egypt with a population of nearly 105 million people has about 450,000 active military personnel.   

It is indeed noteworthy that while Nigeria does not keep a reserve force, both Pakistan and Egypt maintain reserve force of about 550,000 and 479,000, respectively. The low manpower strength of the military presents no small challenge to the prosecution of its operations. This fact was stated recently by the Minister of Defence, Bashir Magashi, who admitted that ‘the Nigeria’s military is understaffed to tackle the various security challenges facing the country’. It therefore remains abstruse why President Buhari given his military background has not given serious consideration to increasing the manpower strength of the military. This is an area of concern for the presidential candidates as they outline their agenda for resolving our security logjam. They must realise that even during the Nigerian civil war, the manpower strength of the military was rapidly increased from about 85,000 at the start of hostilities to nearly 250,000 by the end of the war in 1970.    

If there is any aspect of the military that has seen massive investment in the past five years, and for which President Buhari could be scored high, it must be in the acquisition of weapons and equipment. From the US, Europe, China, Russia, South Africa, and the Middle East, the government-to-government policy has worked. President Buhari has used his goodwill to attract defence aids, procurements, and procurement assurance even from previously hostile supplier nations to bolster our military capability. But these efforts have at best merely improved the abysmally low combat efficiency marginally, due to long years of neglect.  

Whoever succeeds President Buhari must be prepared to shore up the military combat efficiency so that the current gains are not reversed. The funding of the military deserves an improvement. In 2021, Nigeria’s defence spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stood at 0.63 percent. That was quite low compared to many other countries in its league such as Pakistan (4.0 percent), Algeria (6.7 percent), Colombia (3.4 percent), Egypt (1.2) percent and South Africa (1.1) percent. At this stage of our development, Nigeria needs to reposition its defence industry as it is the guarantee for sustained equipment availability. The country needs a leadership that could drive and galvanise the revolution in defence manufacturing sector.   

Nigeria’s high rate of unemployment provides the propellant that fuels the spate of insecurity in a country where endemic corruption continues to create a wide gap between the opulent rich and the impecunious poor. With a pervasive sense of hopelessness caused by increasing rate of unemployment, it is no surprise that the large youth population has become a veritable breeding and recruitment ground for criminalities.  Since the advent of the Buhari administration, unemployment rate has taken a leap from 12.48 percent in 2016 to about 19.7 percent in 2020. In a recent report by the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adeshina lamented the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria stating that 40 percent of Nigerian youths are unemployed. As the contestants mount the campaign podium, Nigerians must demand their strategies to reverse the trend through innovative ideas to create employment.  

Whoever wins the 2023 presidential election already has his job cut out for him. But the electorates must take political parties to task on funding initiatives to drive their usual promises. Until they do this, they will continue to succumb to the vagaries of politicians who in the words of Nikita Khrushchev ‘promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers.’

JOHNSON OLAWUMI  Retired Major General of the Nigerian Army and former Director General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Olawumi held several strategic appointments at the service, defence and public levels. Olawumi obtained a first degree in Mathematics from the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) from the University of Ilorin and a Masters in Defence Studies from the Kings College, London. He is an alumnus of the National Defence College, Abuja, and a proud winner of the presidential award for best graduating participant.