Mr President, Good morning. I convey to your discover a safety dialogue in my division, the Division of Political Science, Lagos State College, on Monday, March 20, 2025. It was an event for interplay between the city and the robe. The ivory tower hugged the town in a scholarly train that reviewed the safety state of affairs in Nigeria from the views of these with boots on the bottom, aerial warfare specialists, and masters of the maritime area. The dialogue revealed a miserable image of the safety state of affairs within the nation.
Additionally, it revealed alternatives and home-grown initiatives to cater to the safety wants of the nation. The body of dialogue conformed with Ole Waever’s (1995) conceptualisation of “safety as an act of discourse and due to this fact as the results of a technique of securitisation, in response to which questions initially international to the idea of safety grow to be such via a technique of social development.”
The dialog yielded an insider’s perspective, wholesome for operations and policy-making within the nation.
Our interlocutors included probably the most revered Nigerian infantry generals, Retired Lieutenant Lamidi Adeosun, a well-decorated Officer and the “Star Boy” of the Nigerian military and presently immersed in a doctoral programme in Management and Strategic Research at NDA; Retired Rear Admiral Tunji Beckley, member of 37 Common Combatant Course of Nigerian Defence Academy who served the Nigerian navy for 38 years; and Retired Air Commodore Taofeek Oladega, member of 37 Common Course of the Nigerian Defence Academy and with Ph.D. in Academic Administration and Planning. Main-Normal W. B. Etuk, the urbane Commandant of the Nigerian Military School of Logistics and Administration, chaired the Event whereas the Normal Officer Commanding 81 Division of the Nigerian Military, Main-Normal Farouk Umar Mijinyawa, was represented by Lieutenant-Colonel O. A. Olubo, Performing Division Officer Director of Training Companies, 81 Division.
Mr President, their shows have been insightful. With the information they exuded there ought to be no famine within the land on safety issues. There isn’t a gainsaying that the long-time neglect of the safety forces by successive navy administrations undermined the power of the Nigerian armed forces.
The spectre of coup haunted navy rulers who intentionally underfunded and consequently underequipped the safety forces. The final main concentrate on the defence got here from the civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari. We might recall then that the Inspector-Normal of Police, Sunday Adewusi so geared up the Nigerian police, particularly its cellular unit that they have been on prime of inside safety challenges permitting the navy to concentrate on exterior aggression.
When the Boko Haram insurgency reared its ugly head in 2009 following the abstract execution of Mohammed Yusuf by the Nigerian state, the Safety forces discovered themselves outgunned by the insurgents. With out the collaboration with the Multinational Joint Process Power headquartered in N’Djamena, Chad, and the sheer bravery of the Officers and Troopers of the Nigerian military, the nation by now would have been overrun. You recall the case of Brigadier-Normal Enitan Ransome-Kuti who made a strategic retreat from Baga as an alternative of losing his males.
The officers drew on Richard Ullman’s (1983) viewpoint who sees “safety as the power of a nation or group to guard its core values, curiosity and lifestyle from threats, challenges and dangers.” As discernable within the identification of the push components and proposals on the safety drawback in our nation, their conception of nationwide safety went past the standard idea of nationwide safety to a sturdy interpretation to embraces Barry Buzan’s (1983) trinity, specifically, “the individuals, the States and worry.”
At first, Nigeria’s safety issues to wit: insurgency and terrorism, nationwide and transnational (Boko Haram and Islamic State in West African Province), piracy and maritime insecurity, and porous border. Others embody cattle rustling, banditry, armed theft, farmer-herder conflicts, political thuggery, insurgency, suicide bombing/IEDs, Kidnapping, smuggling, automotive snatching, rape, compelled marriage, ethno-religious conflicts, unlawful mining, militancy, pipeline vandalism/oil theft, human trafficking, cultism, political killing, restructuring agitation, land battle, ritual killings, sea robberies, smuggling, and separatist impulses. These vices are distributed throughout the six geopolitical zones.
Widespread poverty, unemployment, wrestle for scarce sources among the many peoples of Nigeria, alienation, and corruption have been recognized as a number of the push components which have engendered despair and frustrations amongst Nigerians. The consequence has been the safety challenges everywhere in the nation with a domino impact on the financial system: a discount in international funding and tanking in authorities income, meals insecurity and complete breakdown in social manufacturing.
To beat these numerous issues, capability constructing and modernisation of the nation’s armed forces via enough funding and clear procurement are crucial. Within the final century, navy consultants focused on what they referred to as the battle of the longer term, a big funding in air energy. Though the Nigerian Air Power has invested in Analysis and Improvement (R&D) domiciled on the Air Power Institute of Expertise (AFIT) Kaduna and the Armed Power Analysis and Improvement Centre (AFRDC) Kaduna and has platforms that embody F-7NI Fighter Jet, a multi-role fighter, Tremendous Mushsahk Plane, an Alpha Jet, Augusta 109 LUH Helicopter, and MI-35M Helicopter Gunship, it requires enough funding to accumulate new and cutting-edge platforms in aerial fight. With out the Air Power, the battle towards bandits and insurgents would have remained a mirage.
The Nigerian Navy additionally wants extra platforms. As Alfred Thayer Mahan (cited by Beckley), Naval Officer and Historian, has famous, “It’s the skill of littoral states to exert their maritime energy that may assure the socio-economic improvement for the well-being of their individuals”. Certainly, Nigeria has inland waterways comprising creeks and rivers of about 10,000 km, and solely about 3,800 km are navigable all year-round.
The maritime area holds an estimated 36 billion barrels of oil and 182 trillion cubic toes of gasoline reserves. Oil and gasoline property are valued at $40 billion and are projected to extend to about $120 billion. Transportation income potential is about $1.2 billion yearly. Nigerian Navy with a deficiency in houseboats to police its river entrances and estuaries, wants capability constructing in what Rear Admiral Beckley has referred to as the “trinity of motion”, specifically, surveillance functionality, response functionality, and legislation enforcement functionality.
Nevertheless, there was a consensus round three factors. One is, an emphasis on human safety that stresses the human being because the safety referent as an alternative of {hardware} safety issues. On this respect, employment alternatives are necessary, and funding in training to defeat ignorance and poverty. Two, Nigeria ought to put money into indigenous arms manufacturing companies such because the Nigerian Defence Business and the dynamic Ode-Remo-based Proforce and Innoson Car Manufacturing.
Three, the police pressure wants a complete overhaul that would come with neighborhood policing, coaching, and re-orientation to cope with inside safety issues in ways in which free the navy for the extra rigorous defence of the territorial integrity of the nation. Over to you, Mr President.
Akhaine is a Professor of Political Science on the Lagos State College.
