Let us not mince words. Nigeria is not merely facing a security crisis; it is in the advanced stages of a fundamental crisis of state legitimacy. What we are witnessing is the direct result of a state hollowed out over decades by a political class that views governance as secondary to personal enrichment and politicking. The chaos is no accident; it has become a business, and for a powerful few, a dangerously profitable one.
The scale of the threat is staggering. Nigeria fights a war on multiple fronts: the persistent ISWAP/Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast; a financially devastating kidnapping-for-ransom crisis across the Northwest; massacres in the Middle Belt; and rising criminal violence in the South. This is not a simple security challenge. It is a systemic failure in which institutions meant to protect citizens are either complicit or catastrophically ineffective. From the abduction of federal directors on highways to ₦2.57 billion paid in ransoms in a single year, the state is failing not just to protect its citizens; it has, in many ways, become a source of their insecurity.
The government’s response to this multi-headed hydra has been a masterclass in misdirection, prioritising force over meaningful governance. This approach is not just failing; it is actively worsening the situation. Successive administrations have ceded internal security to the military, a force stretched thin across the country. Military campaigns with grandiose names, like Operation Hadin Kai, fight symptoms rather than causes. Meanwhile, the predatory police force remains unreformed, undermining the very peace these operations claim to achieve.
The single greatest obstacle to peace is the lack of political will to tackle the corruption that fuels the crisis. While soldiers complain of scarce resources, billions of naira are lost yearly to procurement fraud and unaccountable “security votes”. Insecurity has become an industry. Large-scale illegal mining funds armed groups, and the ransom economy has become a national shame. The system perpetuates itself.
Nigeria’s elite has consistently ignored the fertile ground in which violence thrives: spiralling poverty, youth unemployment, and extreme inequality. Amnesty International reports that over the past two years, armed groups have killed more than 10,000 people, displaced hundreds of thousands of farmers, and created a looming humanitarian crisis. A generation of young people with no hope or future becomes a perfect recruitment pool for bandits and militants. By focusing solely on the “bandits” rather than the governance deficits that produce them, the state ensures the perpetual regeneration of violence.
The trajectory is disturbingly familiar. Nigeria’s crisis mirrors structural failures in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, states that have lost their monopoly on legitimate force, where elites prioritise self-enrichment over public welfare. In Nigeria, the economy of violence manifests in kidnapping, ransom payments, and illegal mining, all underpinned by state fragility, corruption, and elite factionalism. To imagine Nigeria immune to the collapses elsewhere is a dangerous delusion.
Perhaps the most telling sign of a state fearful of its own failures is its crackdown on truth-tellers. Institutions tasked with upholding the law have become threats to press freedom. A 2024 Media Rights Agenda report found that security and law enforcement agencies were responsible for 65 percent of attacks on journalists, using “national security” as a pretext to harass, detain, and intimidate reporters.
We saw this in 2019 when investigative journalist Fisayo Soyombo faced threats of arrest after exposing monumental corruption within the police and prison services. The response was not systemic reform but an attempt to punish the messenger. Silencing the media does not protect national security; it protects the corrupt system that is destroying the country.
Where does this leave Nigeria? The trajectory is perilous. The destination is not necessarily a dramatic, overnight collapse but a slow, agonising descent into permanent chaos, a “failed state” in all but name. The continued haemorrhaging of human capital, mass displacement, and rising food insecurity threaten the nation’s very viability. The U.S. Embassy rates Nigeria as “CRITICAL for crime”, warning of pervasive armed robbery and violence.
The warning is clear: if the political elite continues prioritising political manoeuvring, such as absurdly early campaigning for the 2027 elections, over dismantling the profitable infrastructure of corruption, the nation will be consumed by the dark economy of crime it currently indulges. Our shared destiny with the DRC and Sudan looms, a sustained internal war that could shatter the Nigerian project beyond repair. The storm is not gathering; it is already upon us, while our leaders rearrange the deckchairs.
Nwanze is a partner at SBM Intelligence.
