The term ‘national security enterprise’ encompasses a nation’s entire ecosystem of institutions, policies, and partnerships designed to protect its sovereignty, citizens, and interests. In Nigeria, this enterprise includes traditional security and defence agencies but also encompasses diplomatic engagements, economic policies, cybersecurity frameworks, as well as strategies, policies, plans, and community initiatives aimed at achieving its national security imperatives. It is the complex machinery through which the state projects power, maintains order, and ensures its survival in a complex threat environment.
Nigeria’s security enterprise faces a perfect storm of converging threats that challenge its very foundations. The traditional focus on state-on-state conflict has been eclipsed by non-state armed groups, criminal networks, and ideological movements that exploit governance gaps and social fractures. Since May 29, 2023, the Tinubu administration has inherited a nation of deep political divisions and weak social cohesion, grappling with severe economic hardship, with soaring inflation creating tinderbox conditions for social unrest. These challenges, particularly the economic despair, are powerful accelerants, driving disaffected youth into the arms of extremist groups and criminal gangs.
“Many of Nigeria’s most intractable challenges are rooted in governance (federal, state and local) failures, economic inequality, and environmental stress.”
This multifaceted crisis is a fundamental test of the enterprise’s design. While significant funds are allocated to security (over 6 trillion Naira in the 2025 budget), a large portion is consumed by personnel and operational costs, some of which are reportedly “cooked up”, leaving inadequate resources for crucial capital expenditure. This reflects a deeper institutional challenge: the current enterprise, vitiated by institutionalised weaknesses, corruption, poor equipment, and low morale, was designed for a different era and struggles to adapt to today’s dynamic and hybrid threats.
The organisational core of Nigeria’s security enterprise is vast and complex, comprising, at the federal level, an estimated 29 primary and an additional 13 associated security ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs). While these bodies should function as a unified whole, they are often hampered by inter-agency rivalry, inadequate information sharing, and conflicting priorities. Under the Tinubu administration, an additional challenge, a lack of clarity in strategic, tactical, and operational mandates, has limited their effectiveness.
The sheer diversity of threats—from political brigandry and the ideological non-state armed groups, including the Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad, Islamic State in West Africa Province, Ansaru, Lakurawas and Mahmudawas insurgency, to rampant banditry and secessionist agitation—continues to overwhelm this framework. This has made the need for Security Sector Reform (SSR) an imperative. SSR is a long-term process of improving the governance and performance of security institutions to make them more effective, accountable, and responsive to the needs of the people. This includes reforming the security and defence sector MDAs, ensuring they operate under the rule of law and respect human rights.
Read also: Nigeria deepens counterterrorism push with revised national security strategy
A key strategic document guiding this effort is the National Security Strategy (NSS), last updated in 2019, when a yet-to-be-fulfilled promise of a paradigm shift from state-centric to citizen-centred security was made. It outlines a comprehensive approach to address both kinetic and non-kinetic threats. The National Counter-Terrorism Strategy (NACTEST), for instance, focuses on proactive measures to “deny, deter, detect, and defeat” terrorism. However, its effectiveness has been undermined by a lack of coordinated implementation across the three levels of government and the myriad of security MDAs. Another significant policy, the Armed Forces Transformation Plan, aims to modernise the military, but its progress has been slow due to a combination of bureaucratic inertia and resource constraints.
A truly mature national security enterprise recognises that not all threats can be neutralised by force alone. Many of Nigeria’s most intractable challenges are rooted in governance (federal, state and local) failures, economic inequality, and environmental stress. The escalating conflict between farmers and pastoralists, for example, is driven by competition over dwindling land and water resources. The response has been disproportionately kinetic, while the non-kinetic components, diplomacy, development programming, and community engagement, are often under-resourced.
This is where Security Sector Governance (SSG) becomes a critical pillar. SSG is the framework of laws, policies, practices, and institutions that ensures security is provided in a transparent, accountable, and rights-respecting manner. It involves the roles of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, as well as civil society and the media, in providing oversight and holding security agencies accountable.
Without robust governance, no amount of military reform can be truly effective. The enterprise’s long-term legitimacy and effectiveness depend on its ability to protect the population not just from physical threats but also from the state’s own potential for abuse. The arrest of journalists and violent suppression of protest only serve to validate the narratives of those who seek to undermine the state.
Nigeria’s current predicament signals that its national security enterprise requires a fundamental paradigm shift. This entails several crucial changes:
1. A shift from a reactive, military-centric model to a proactive, whole-of-society framework. This means fully integrating economic policy, educational reform, and youth empowerment into the national security strategy, recognising that a job is often a more powerful deterrent than a gun. This requires both federal and subnational involvement.
2. A commitment to confront corruption, which syphons resources, erodes morale, and destroys public trust. No amount of foreign assistance or new equipment can compensate for a deficit of integrity within the security services.
3. Genuine investment in regional cooperation. Threats are transnational, and platforms like the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) must be strengthened with greater political and resource commitment from Nigeria and its neighbours, especially the coterminous ones such as Niger and Cameroon.
4. A recommitment to the rule of law and human rights. The enterprise’s long-term legitimacy and effectiveness depend on its ability to protect the population. This is achieved through effective SSR and robust SSG.
The ultimate test of Nigeria’s National Security Enterprise will be its ability to evolve from a collection of often-competing institutions into a truly integrated, agile, and resilient network. It must be a force capable of defending not just the state’s borders, but the security and dignity of every Nigerian citizen through accountable governance and comprehensive reform.
Kabir Adamu is the Managing Director of Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited.
