Impunity + Inefficiency + Insanity = Intractable Insecurity In Nigeria
My country has been in the global
spotlight for the wrong reasons in recent times, as many Nigerians struggle to
sleep with their two eyes closed, travel along our highways without panting in
fear of possible kidnapping, congregate in their respective places of worship
without trembling, or allow their children to go to school without fear of mass
abduction. Albeit more prevalent in the northern region of Nigeria, insecurity
is fast eroding our normalcy. From Kebbi to Niger, Kwara to Adama, Yobe to
Borno, all 36 States and the FCT have each had an unfortunate share of
Nigeria’s intractable insecurity over the last 15 years or so.
I cannot but concur with the salient position
advanced by the Senior Fellow and Director, Africa Program, Centre for
Strategic and International Studies, Oge Onubogu, at the public hearing held on
Thursday, 20th November 2025, at the hallowed chambers of the United States
Congress about the alleged genocide against Christians in our troubled country.
At the heart of Mrs Onubogu’s lucid and truthful response was her consistent
advice to the United States government to better characterize Nigeria’s
insecurity as “multifaceted” rather than a straitjacket Christian extermination
agenda, upon which the President Donald Trump-led administration had
erroneously hinged its designation of Nigeria as a “Country of Public Concern”
(CPC). Of a truth, we bear a mixed profile of insecurity that includes violent inter-communal
land disputes, pockets of sectarian violence due to religious extremism, farmer-herder
clashes, incessant kidnapping, armed robbery, and various shades of serial
banditry.
Central to the complexity of our
security outcomes is the accumulation of three maladies that resonate more
aggressively than the current administration's infrastructural renewal
endeavour, spearheaded by our dear President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR. This somewhat
lengthy article seeks to highlight the accumulated cases of wanton impunity,
institutional inefficiency, and outright insanity within our security corridor,
which, although rarely articulated in security conversations, have dovetailed
into the unfortunate state of intractable insecurity we find ourselves in and
have drawn the international community's attention.
Impunity
“Spare the rod and spoil the child”
is an old proverb that remains relevant today, perhaps shedding its literal,
corporal-punishment meaning in favor of modern approaches to rebuke. A society
that fails to punish in accordance with the rule of law is a reckless, lawless
nation that throws away repeated opportunities for deterrence. There have been
empty promises to name, shame, blame, and tame identified sponsors of terrorism
in Nigeria; that constitutes impunity. On 13th May 2022, Deborah Samuel, at
Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, was gruesomely murdered by her
Muslim peers for alleged blasphemy, and her perpetrators were later acquitted;
that personifies impunity. Political thugs on the payroll of the ruling party
at either the national or subnational level who are arrested with guns before,
during, and after several elections in this country are often detained for some
days and quietly released thereafter for a job well done for their paymasters; that
dignifies impunity. Wait a minute – the
Federal government successfully “negotiated” the release of church members
kidnapped during a church at Eruku, Kwara State, but refused to apprehend their
abductors. Does that inaction not embolden, liberalize, and perpetuate an
economy of terrorism? Some herders
intentionally lead their flocks to eat shrubs & other agro-investments on
farmlands and sometimes maim the farmers who dare complain; that is utter
impunity. As a public official, the then Minister of Communication, Isa Pantami,
had pre-office public comments that were in sympathy and eulogy of Al-Qaeda (a
global terrorist organization). Still, his principal, late President Muhammadu
Buhari, didn’t see the need to show him the way out of his cabinet, at least to
deter other Nigerians who were pro-religious extremism and sectarian violence.
Furthermore, at various times, the
Nigeria Customs Service has arrested high-profile smugglers of firearms across some
of our numerous borders with our regional neighbours, but how many have been
prosecuted and profiled to gather intelligence about their respective
syndicates? That is classic impunity. The Free Universal Basic Education Act of
2004 makes it compulsory for parents to enrol all their school-aged children in
school. Still, the out-of-school population, especially in northern Nigeria, is
alarming, and the inconsistent or nil enforcement of this act is loud; that
constitutes impunity. The Child’s Rights Act criminalizes child loitering –
yet, vagrancy exists in some states with no report of arrest & prosecution of
defiant children and their parents/caregivers; that inaction encourages
impunity. What has been done to persuade other states that are yet to
domesticate this law, and has any concrete legal action been taken against the
practice of the Almajiri system of informal Qur’anic education that
predominates some parts of northern Nigeria in contravention of the Child’s
Rights Act? No. That constitutes impunity.
Not done. Take note that the 2024
EFCC Act is constitutionally prohibited from investigating and prosecuting
allegedly corrupt military top brass involved in arms & ammunition
procurement scams, due to a concurrent legal prerequisite requiring accused
military officers to first appear before a court-martial. When will the Senate
and House of Representatives reconcile this lacuna? How many previous military expenditures
have been objectively probed? That, again, encourages impunity.
Inefficiency
Numerous layers of inefficiency
contribute to insecurity in our country. There are countless, unofficial,
unidentified, and unmanned land borders between Nigeria and her neighbours
(Niger Republic, Chad, Cameroon & Benin Republic) running through
mountainous areas, forest zones, desert landscapes, and so forth, allowing
unhindered cross-border migration of criminal elements. Moreover, Nigeria
relies on a single Federal police system with a paltry 370,000 officers (as of
October 2025) to serve an estimated 220 million Nigerians scattered across 36
States, 1 Federal Capital Territory, 774 Local Government Areas, and 8,809
political wards recognized by the independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC). State Police (and Community police) are rhetoric. Despite this
shortage, which falls far short of the often-cited global recommendation of 1
policeman to 400 citizens, an estimated 100,000 Nigerian cops are allegedly
attached to VIPs (European Union report, November 2025). However, it remains to
be seen how President Tinubu’s recent directive to withdraw these officers from
VIP duties and redeploy them to their core police functions will be implemented.
How buoyant is the remuneration
package for the entry-level ranks of the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria
Army (constable and private Non-Commissioned Officer, respectively), who
together comprise most frontline/field security officers? Can this low morale
contribute to institutional inefficiency, given that the lowest-paid Police constable
(entry-level recruit) as of year 2025 in some other countries are as follows - in Brazil: R$22,800 – R$42,000 ₦6.1 million – ₦11.3 million at current
exchange rate of 1 Brazilian Real = ₦261) per annum; in South Africa:
R185,000 - R200,000 (₦15.7 million – ₦16.9 million at current
exchange rate of 1 South African Rand = ₦84) per annum; and in the United
Kingdom: £29,000 - £32,000 (₦55.1 million – ₦60.8 million at current
exchange rate of 1 British Pound = ₦1,900)
per annum. These dignifying pay structures for citizens of these three nations who
put their lives at risk to secure their respective societies exclude fringe
benefits such as access to quality healthcare through social health insurance
or similar programs, robust life insurance, and others.
Also, appear at a police station to complain
of suspected movements of criminals around your vicinity, and the Investigating
Police Officer will likely but truthfully inform you of the absence of fuel in
the police van to convey officers to your area. In addition, officers of the Nigerian
Army are overstretched, as they occupy multiple security checkpoints along
several highways, when such civil matters ought to be the exclusive responsibility
of the Police. What of the intelligence-gathering and intelligence-usage
proficiency? How about the poor coordination among the several security
agencies? To what extent is technology deployed for security across all nooks
& crannies of our nation? I only see drones and police helicopters when Mr.
President is set to make an official visit to a State or when there is a major
Police ceremony. To what extent does the National Space Research and
Development Agency (NASRDA) contribute to national security optimization
through its satellites? Is any seat even allocated to NASRDA in the security
strategy room of Nigeria?
Insanity
It's a catalogue, but I’ll highlight
a few. There existed (or exists) an insane policy to “forgive, rehabilitate and
reintegrate” ‘repentant’ Boko Haram members (these are persons who have maimed
fellow humans, set homes ablaze, destroyed farmlands, and left their survivors
in perpetual grief), and even offer some of these ‘ex-murderers’ foreign
scholarships. How about open grazing in the 21st century? Leading a herd of
cattle around Central Business Districts, farmlands, residential areas, and so
forth in search of grass & hay, with some herders bearing arms, and the government’s
dilly-dally over this retrogressive behaviour is no less a case of irrationality.
Open negotiation with bandits through a popular Islamic cleric-cum-mediator (of
northern extraction) has been another form of insanity recorded in times past,
with these criminal elements appearing at the negotiation tables armed with
their guns. Perhaps a ruinous grade of insanity (and not mere ‘inefficiency’)
is the ease of movement/payment of billions of naira as ransom to kidnappers
through Nigeria’s banking system, with no report of any syndicate tracked so
far – a blatant mockery of the noisy efforts to mobilize Nigerians to register
for National Identification Number (NIN), Bank Verification Number (BVN), and
the compulsory enlistment of business entities with the Special Control Unit
against Money Laundering (SCUML) of the EFCC.
Think also of the seamless
communication by abductors with family & friends of their victims without
security agencies intercepting such calls. In contrast, a social media rant
against a high-ranking political officeholder in this country is always
successfully traced to apprehend the sender. Isn’t that absurd? Finally, is it
sane for those Nigerian women, whose mental capacities are caged by one or more
of religion, culture, ignorance, illiteracy, poverty, or spousal insistence, to
continue to bear numerous children whom they cannot cater to, and end up
abandoning same to fend for themselves at young ages, roam the streets, and
become susceptible to recruitments as armed robbers, kidnappers, bandits, and terrorists?
How have religious leaders, traditional rulers, education policies, health
programmes (such as family planning), and poverty alleviation interventions of
Federal, State & local governments, together re-oriented and supported
these households to reduce their vulnerability to agents of insecurity?
With these truth-laden points, I hope
I have enabled an impeccable diagnosis of the syndrome of impunity,
inefficiency, and insanity, which altogether plague a Nigerian society that
reeks of intractable insecurity. After all, “and ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free”.
Dr. Adetolu Ademujimi is a Medical
Doctor, Health Finance Specialist, Author, Reformer, Coach, Public Policy
expert, and social entrepreneur who can be reached in Abuja via adetoluademujimi@gmail.com
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