Nigeria’s Security Problem: Why Bombs Cannot Cure Hunger and Bullets Cannot Defeat Bad Governance -By Prof. Leonard Karshima Shilgba

Nigeria has become a nation perpetually “fighting insecurity,” yet insecurity appears to be fighting back with greater sophistication, wider reach, and frightening resilience. Every budget cycle produces another avalanche of “security votes,” “security interventions,” “security procurements,” and “security operations.” More patrol vehicles are purchased. More drones are displayed. More military hardware is paraded before cameras. Yet millions of Nigerians still sleep with one eye open and one ear tuned permanently to danger.

Clearly, something is wrong with our understanding of security itself.

The recent appointment of retired Major-General Adeyinka Famadewa as Special Adviser on Homeland Security to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, alongside his thoughtful reflections on national security, offers Nigeria an opportunity to rethink the issue more fundamentally.

General Famadewa correctly observed that national security is not synonymous with military activity. Indeed, quoting former U.S. Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, he reminded us that:

“Security is development, and without development, there is no security.”

That statement alone should shake many government offices in Nigeria more than an earthquake.

For too long, Nigeria has approached security as though insecurity were merely a shortage of guns, uniforms, checkpoints, and sirens. We have mistaken defence for security. They are not the same thing.

A country can possess fighter jets and still produce hungry citizens who become kidnappers out of economic desperation. A nation may buy armoured personnel carriers while hospitals collapse, schools decay, farms are abandoned, and youths become willing recruits for criminal enterprises.

Nigeria’s insecurity is multidimensional because Nigeria’s dysfunction itself is multidimensional.

We are dealing simultaneously with:

• physical terrorism by armed bandits, kidnappers, cult groups, violent herders, and robbers;
• cyber and financial terrorism by fraud syndicates and hackers;
• economic terrorism unleashed by reckless and anti-people public policies;
• and governmental terrorism through corruption and diversion of public resources meant for public welfare.

Indeed, when public officials loot funds meant for roads, schools, hospitals, water systems, electricity, agriculture, and jobs, they are not merely committing financial crimes; they are weakening society’s immune system against insecurity.

A hungry graduate is easier to recruit into internet fraud than a gainfully employed one.

A frustrated farmer whose crops are repeatedly destroyed without compensation is more vulnerable to criminal temptation than one protected by functional governance.

An angry unemployed youth in Makurdi, Kano, Port Harcourt, or Lagos may become tomorrow’s cultist, cybercriminal, political thug, or kidnapper—not because he was born evil, but because society abandoned him while politicians debated security inside air-conditioned conference halls protected by armed escorts.

This is why bombs and bullets alone cannot solve Nigeria’s insecurity problems.

One cannot bomb hunger out of existence.

One cannot shoot poverty dead.

One cannot deploy armoured tanks against inflation.

And one certainly cannot cure institutional corruption with military camouflage.

Sometimes Nigeria behaves like a man whose roof is leaking badly, but instead of repairing the roof, he buys a more expensive bucket to collect the rainwater inside the house.

Our understanding of “security expenditure” also requires urgent rethinking.

When governments announce massive spending on “security,” what exactly are they funding?

If security means preserving the stability, safety, and productive capacity of society, then quality schools are security infrastructure. Functional hospitals are security infrastructure. Agricultural support is security infrastructure. Youth employment programmes are security infrastructure. Reliable electricity is security infrastructure. Digital literacy is security infrastructure.

A hungry population is a national security risk.

A poorly educated population is a national security risk.

A deeply corrupt bureaucracy is a national security risk.

An economy that produces despair faster than opportunities is a national security risk.

Countries that have successfully reduced insecurity understood this long ago.

Singapore did not become one of the safest societies in the world merely through policing. It invested heavily in housing, education, efficient public institutions, and anti-corruption systems.

Rwanda emerged from genocide not merely by deploying force, but by rebuilding institutions, enforcing accountability, improving local governance, and creating social order.

Finland consistently ranks among the safest countries partly because social trust, education, economic inclusion, and institutional transparency reduce the breeding grounds of violent crime.

Even the United States, despite its military power, relies extensively on inter-agency intelligence, financial tracking, technological surveillance, law enforcement coordination, and social interventions to manage security threats.

As General Famadewa noted in his article, the response to the Boston Marathon bombing was not an army invasion of Boston. It was intelligence-driven, technologically coordinated, law-enforcement-centered, and institutionally integrated.

Nigeria, by contrast, often responds to every security challenge with military deployments, checkpoints, and dramatic press briefings—as though insecurity were an enemy army alone.

Sometimes our public conversations about security resemble villagers attempting to kill mosquitoes with cutlasses.

For Benue State in particular, the lesson is crucial.

Benue cannot achieve lasting security merely by increasing armed patrols, though security enforcement remains necessary. Benue’s long-term security depends equally on:

• modernized agriculture,
• rural economic revitalization,
• functional education,
• youth technical skills,
• community intelligence systems,
• digital employment opportunities,
• land management reforms,
• and stronger local policing structures.

The advocacy for state police by Hyacinth Alia therefore deserves serious national consideration. Nigeria’s security architecture remains overly centralized for a country of such vast demographic, cultural, and geographic complexity.

A governor constitutionally described as “Chief Security Officer” but lacking operational command over security structures resembles a football coach who cannot choose his players, determine tactics, or substitute exhausted defenders during a match.

No serious federation functions effectively that way.

Yet state police alone will not solve everything. Local police operating inside economically collapsing communities will merely become better-positioned witnesses to social breakdown.

What Nigeria needs is a comprehensive security philosophy rooted in human development, economic productivity, institutional accountability, intelligence coordination, technological adaptation, and community participation.

Security is not merely the absence of gunfire.

Security is the presence of hope.

Security is a functioning economy.

Security is a young graduate believing tomorrow can be better than today without joining Yahoo-Yahoo syndicates or kidnapping gangs.

Security is a farmer cultivating land without fear.

Security is a child attending school instead of fleeing violence.

Security is a citizen trusting that public funds will serve public purposes.

Conversely, insecurity is encouraging or permitting a system where one public official has access to and can steal hundreds of billions of naira meant for public development or growth whereas many of Nigerian children are sleeping under bridges and on roadsides on empty stomachs. Oh, what easy recruits of criminal enterprises!

Until Nigeria understands this, we may continue spending trillions on “security” while insecurity continues to hold strategic meetings somewhere in the bush—and perhaps laughing at us for still believing that every national problem can be solved by louder sirens, bigger convoys, elaborate conferences, bogus expenditure, and more checkpoints, which by the way are toll gates, and our government officials, who should protect Nigerians, know about this but overlook any way.