Cally Ikpe, Ph.D
On Christmas Day in 2009, the world awoke to the shocking news of an attempted terrorist attack aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253. The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was a young Nigerian whose failed attempt to detonate explosives over American airspace instantly altered global perceptions of Nigeria’s security profile. At the time, many Nigerians dismissed the incident as an isolated aberration; an unfortunate act by a misguided individual with little bearing on the country’s internal security. Few imagined that it would foreshadow one of the darkest, and enduring crises in Nigeria’s history.
Nearly two decades after, insecurity has become the defining challenge confronting the Nigerian state. What began as a localized insurgency has evolved into a nationwide web of terrorism, banditry, kidnapping for ransom, communal violence, separatist militancy, cultism, piracy, and organised criminality. Today, no part of Nigeria can claim immunity from violent crimes.
The relevant question now is; who funds terrorist activities? Because no terrorist movement survives on ideology alone. Sustaining violent campaigns requires money, logistics, recruitment, weapons procurement, intelligence gathering, transportation, communications, and propaganda. Whether these resources originate from kidnapping for ransom, illegal mining, cattle rustling, illicit taxation, transnational organised crime, arms trafficking, or external sponsorship, dismantling the financial architecture of terrorism must become as important as defeating terrorism itself. Military victories can reclaim territories, but only financial disruption can permanently weaken terrorist networks.
Nowhere has the challenges of insecurity been more visible than in Nigeria’s North-East, where Boko Haram first emerged. Although the Nigerian Armed Forces have significantly degraded Boko Haram, the insurgents continue to launch deadly attacks, exploit difficult terrain, and adapt their tactics. The conflict has changed in character rather than disappeared, demanding constant innovation in intelligence, surveillance, and counter-terrorism strategy.
Across the North-West, insecurity has assumed a dangerous dimension, with random Kidnappings and violent attacks on citizens in that region. The North-Central, often described as Nigeria’s food basket, has become one of the most traumatized regions in the country, arising from the intersection of farmer-herder disputes, organised criminality, ethnic tensions, and terrorist infiltration. The recent Yelwata massacre in Benue State, is a ready example.
The Southwest, long regarded as comparatively stable, has witnessed a troubling rise in kidnapping, armed robbery, and violent criminal activity, in recent times. While separatist agitations in the South East has become intertwined with criminal opportunism, leading to attacks on security infrastructure and loss of lives. The South-South presents a different but equally instructive lesson, where sustained political engagements and security interventions have reduced militancy in the Niger Delta, with piracy, kidnapping, illegal oil bunkering, cult violence, and organised crime, becoming the new threats. Abuja, once considered Nigeria’s safest sanctuary, has not escaped the disturbing trend of Kidnappings, criminal incursions and isolated terrorist threats, which creates a sobering reality that no location is beyond the reach of insecurity.
These realities have inevitably renewed the national conversation on policing reforms, leading to the current bill on state policing being considered by the National Assembly. A centralized policing model for Nigeria’s vast population, is no longer feasible. It becomes necessary that state police services, operating within clear constitutional safeguards and robust accountability mechanisms, could be the answer.
However, policing reforms alone will not solve Nigeria’s security crisis. Modern security depends on intelligence, technological innovation, effective border management, a functional criminal justice system, and inclusive economic development. It also requires investments in surveillance technologies, drones, biometric identification systems, digital forensics, artificial intelligence, integrated national databases, and real-time intelligence sharing among security agencies.
It must be noted, though, that security is not the exclusive preserve of government alone. Every successful security architecture in the world rests upon active citizen participation. Communities must reject criminal collaboration, political leaders must resist the temptation to inflame ethnic and sectarian divisions, and citizens must recognize that timely intelligence saves lives.
As Nigeria continues to debate the constitutional establishment of state police, it is important to recognize that localized policing represents an institutional extension of the broader principle of right to life and collective self-preservation. Communities are most times the first to experience emerging security threats, making their participation indispensable to effective prevention and response.
This broader philosophy of community participation has found expression within Nigeria’s own security leadership. The Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa, has repeatedly emphasized that citizens and communities must work hand in hand with security agencies in protecting their localities. His message reflects a timeless security principle: government alone cannot secure every community without the vigilance, cooperation, and resilience of the people themselves. A vigilant community, could therefore thwart a terrorist attack with timely information to the relevant agencies. Effective deterrence is achieved not by encouraging lawlessness but by ensuring that criminality carries unacceptable risks and diminishing prospects of success.
The challenge before us is enormous, but so too is the hope. That hope resides on the premise that Nigeria has overcome more difficult challenges in the past, when we all came together. What is required now for us to overcome once more, is courageous political leadership, stronger institutions, accountable governance, technological innovations, and constitutional reforms. When these forces work together, insecurity can be progressively contained, and all Nigerians can live without fear irrespective of political, ethnic, or religious affiliation. That is the Nigeria we must collectively build, and never cease to believe is possible.
Cally Ikpe, Ph.D is a broadcast journalist and convener Violence-free Nigeria Initiative. He contributed this piece from Abuja, and could be reached via Cally_ikpe@yahoo.com
