Nigeria today stands at a dangerous national-security crossroads. Citizens confront an unrelenting mix of banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, piracy, communal violence, economic insecurity, energy vulnerability, cybercrime, and deepening social fracture. Democratic space is shrinking even as regulatory, judicial, and security institutions are increasingly weaponised. The Armed Forces, stretched thin across internal deployments, appear less capable and effective than at any time in recent history.
Externally, Nigeria faces a harsher global environment. The United States, our most consequential foreign partner, now pursues a more coercive, transactional foreign policy, one that has labelled Nigeria a “country of particular concern.” Yet, at this sensitive moment, the U.S. abruptly withdrew its career ambassador to Nigeria, who had spent two years quietly rebuilding political and commercial relationships.
Regionally, Nigeria watches as ECOWAS fractures under pressure from Russian influence in the Sahel, even as those same Russian “security guarantees” fail Mali, Burkina Faso, and their neighbours. It has not yet fully dawned on decision-makers that Nigeria’s borders are inseparable from ECOWAS’ borders. Meanwhile, China steadily displaces Nigeria as the region’s dominant trading partner, extracting forestry, mineral, and fisheries resources from Nigeria and others in exchange for consumer goods and debt.
Domestically, power within the security ecosystem has become increasingly centralised. The National Security Adviser now appears to function simultaneously as de facto Minister of Defence, intelligence coordinator, and domestic policy actor. At the same time, Nigeria has operated for over two years without substantive diplomatic representation across its missions, even after ambassadorial nominees have been cleared by the National Assembly.
Recent U.S. missile strikes reportedly conducted in Sokoto State illustrate a deeper problem. Official narratives speak of “terrorist camps totally destroyed”, yet no credible battle damage assessments, photographic evidence, equipment destruction, confirmed casualties, or follow-on mopping-up operations by Nigerian forces have been presented. Credibility in national security depends on evidence, not slogans.
These episodes are not isolated failures. They are symptoms of a deeper structural problem: Nigeria’s national security system was never primarily designed to protect citizens. It was designed to protect regimes.
A security system built for regimes, not Nigerians
From the colonial era through successive military and civilian governments, Nigeria’s security architecture has been shaped more by elite political insecurity than by the safety and well-being of citizens. Intelligence agencies, police units, and military formations evolved as tools of regime preservation and internal control rather than as instruments of public protection.
The pivotal moment came after the 1976 assassination of General Murtala Muhammed. Rather than a comprehensive redesign, Nigeria responded with panic-driven institutional engineering. The Police “E Branch” was converted into the Nigerian Security Organisation, later fragmented into the DSS, NIA, and DIA under the National Security Agencies Act of 1986. This architecture was not built on strategic reflection or a clear national-interest doctrine; it was shaped by fear of coups and elite vulnerability.
Four decades later, without reform or evolution, the consequences are visible everywhere: fragmented intelligence, inter-agency rivalry, weak national assessments, and the absence of a genuine strategic brain of the Nigerian state. This system persists not because it works, but because it serves power.
The result is a country with vast ungoverned spaces; terrorists and bandits negotiating de facto arrangements with local authorities; illicit mining syndicates capturing mineral corridors; ethno-religious militias acting as alternative guarantors of security; and security agencies and courts increasingly entangled in political contests. Nigeria is becoming a “Federal Republic of Self-Help”, where citizens rely on vigilantes, traditional authorities, or criminal networks for survival.
Strategy without structural reform
The 2019 National Security Strategy (NSS) deserves credit for attempting a conceptual shift. It adopts the language of “human security”, recognising that food, jobs, energy, health, and institutional integrity matter as much as weapons systems.
On paper, this was progress. In practice, insecurity has worsened in the six years since it was published. The reason is simple: Nigeria changed its language without changing its machinery. Strategy was updated, but structure, incentives, and behaviour were not. Nigeria’s problem is not a lack of ideas; it is a failure of architecture, governance, and execution.
Three interlinked failures lie at the core: the absence of a hard national-interest doctrine, an outdated and fragmented security architecture, and a civil–military legal framework that has not evolved with democratic realities.
The missing core: No hard national-interest doctrine
Every credible national security system begins with a ranked definition of national interest: what is vital, what is important, and what is negotiable. Nigeria’s NSS lists worthy objectives but avoids prioritisation. When everything is declared strategic, nothing truly is.
Without a hard doctrine, defence procurement becomes politicised, foreign deployments reactive, economic security subordinated to short-term fiscal pressures, and energy insecurity tolerated despite its obvious strategic consequences. National security becomes episodic and improvised rather than disciplined and strategic.
20th-century architecture in a 21st-century threat environment
Nigeria’s core security architecture still rests on the 1986 intelligence tripod of DSS, NIA, and DIA. The Defence Headquarters, lacking a clear statutory grounding under the Armed Forces Act, was never designed as a true joint strategic nerve centre. The National Security and Defence Council exists constitutionally but lacks institutional staff, technical capacity, or proactive planning mechanisms.
The result is rivalry instead of integration, overreach instead of coordination, and personalities substituting for systems. The 2019 NSS recognises multiple threats but says little about how intelligence priorities are set, how foreign, defence, and domestic policy are synchronised, or how cyber, energy, and economic threats are assessed in real time.
Modern security systems rely on permanent fusion centres, joint planning staffs, data integration, and continuous risk management. Nigeria remains compartmentalised, ad hoc and reactive.
Defence governance without civilian strategy
The Armed Forces Act, 2004, governs command, discipline, and military justice, but it fails to embed defence policy within a civilian-led strategic framework. It does not clearly separate operational command from democratic oversight, modernise military justice, or define a robust doctrine for domestic deployment.
In effect, Nigeria operates a highly president-centric defence system in which the president functions as de facto minister of defence. The effectiveness of the ministry often depends on the personal stature of the serving minister rather than on institutional authority. By contrast, mature democracies embed clear doctrines for military aid to civil authorities, strong legislative oversight, and periodic renewal of defence laws.
Nigeria’s defence law still reflects an era where national survival was framed primarily around regime stability, not citizen security.
Implementation without accountability
The 2019 NSS promises transparent and accountable implementation, yet establishes no delivery mechanism, no performance framework, no statutory reporting obligations, and no oversight cycle. Responsibility is diffused across “all MDAs and the public”, but accountability is concentrated nowhere.
Effective security systems assign ownership, measure outcomes, report to legislatures, and impose consequences for failure. Nigeria does none of these institutionally or consistently.
Security without economic and energy resilience is an illusion
Nigeria’s gravest security vulnerabilities today are not purely military. Energy insecurity undermines industry and food production; infrastructure deficits cripple response capacity; youth unemployment fuels recruitment into violence; weak financial systems enable terrorism financing; and cyber vulnerabilities threaten elections and critical services.
The NSS acknowledges these links but treats them as background conditions rather than as frontline security priorities. In credible security systems, energy, ports, telecoms, finance, and data platforms are strategic assets. In Nigeria, they remain siloed sectoral concerns.
Why reform is now urgent
Nigeria faces a radically altered threat environment: fiscal stress, Sahelian instability, social fragmentation, and a weakening social contract. A revised National Security Strategy is no longer optional; it is a survival imperative.
A serious review must do six things: codify a hard national-interest doctrine; redesign security architecture around the citizen; reform defence governance and civil–military relations; make implementation measurable and enforceable; elevate economic and energy security to core strategic status; and align international commitments with national priorities.
Conclusion: Security is governance by other means
Nigeria’s security crisis is not a failure of courage among soldiers or competence among officers. It is a failure of governance design and execution. The country has modernised language without modernising institutions, expanded objectives without rebuilding structures, and widened responsibilities without embedding accountability.
Until Nigeria aligns its strategy, laws, institutions, budgets, and oversight mechanisms into a coherent whole, it will continue to fight today’s and tomorrow’s threats with yesterday’s systems. National security is not merely the absence of war; it is the disciplined organisation of state power around the well-being of citizens. Without this, no strategy, however eloquent, can preserve the Republic.
