In recent days, Nigeria has been gripped by a terrifying resurgence of violence, forcing the nation to confront the gaping holes in its security architecture, even after a recent declaration of a “nationwide security emergency” by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The brazen mass kidnappings, which have seen hundreds of people predominantly schoolchildren, seized in quick succession across the North-West and North-Central regions, serve as a stark, bloody challenge to the government’s ability to protect its citizens and validate the emergency measures put in place. This intensification of the crisis calls into question the long-term effectiveness of reactive military deployments and political declarations when tackling a problem rooted in deep socio-economic and structural failures.
The latest wave of abductions, which included the shocking seizure of hundreds of students and teachers from a Catholic school in Niger State, has thrust Nigeria back onto the global stage for all the wrong reasons. These incidents are not isolated acts of crime; they are symptomatic of an expanding and profitable criminal ecosystem where armed bandits operate with a chilling level of impunity. Unlike the ideologically driven kidnappings of Boko Haram’s past, today’s crisis is largely commercial. Data from security institutes and local sources indicates that citizens have paid an estimated $1.42 billion in ransoms to these criminal gangs over the last year alone, establishing a parallel economy of terror that bankrolls further violence. The sheer scale and frequency of these attacks demonstrate that the government’s security measures, including the recent emergency declaration have failed to deter the non-state actors operating in Nigeria’s vast, ungoverned spaces.
The declaration of a security emergency, outlined by the President to include the recruitment of an additional 20,000 police officers, the redeployment of police from VIP protection, and the formation of forest security teams, is seen by many critics as a necessary but significantly belated response. Analysts argue that such recruitment efforts should have been initiated years ago, following the established pattern of previous administrations reacting to crises rather than pre-empting them with proactive, sustained reforms. Furthermore, the operational challenges of these measures are immense. Nigeria’s security forces are already stretched thin, under-equipped, and widely distrusted by local populations. Simply adding more personnel without fundamental restructuring, better intelligence gathering, and improved welfare risks perpetuates the current cycle of inefficiency and abuse.
A key factor fueling the crisis is the continued failure of security governance, particularly the highly centralized nature of policing in Nigeria. Security experts and advocacy groups have long pointed to the lack of state or local police forces as “Nigeria’s original sin” in its security failures. The federal police, controlled from Abuja, often lacks the local intelligence, cultural sensitivity, and rapid response capacity necessary to combat localized threats like banditry and the persistent, deadly herder-farmer conflict, particularly prevalent in the Middle Belt. These conflicts, exacerbated by climate change, desertification, and resource competition, are often exploited by criminal elements and militias armed with sophisticated weapons flowing from conflict zones in the Sahel.
The security emergency’s success hinges on whether it can move beyond symbolic gestures to address these structural issues. Until the government can restore effective control over the nation’s forests—which serve as untouchable hideouts for terrorists and bandits and ensure that security resources are deployed to protect the vulnerable, not just political centres like Abuja, the crisis will continue to intensify. The current reality is that the security situation is actively challenging the authority and capacity of the Nigerian state, suggesting that a mere declaration of emergency is insufficient without a radical overhaul of the entire security sector, focusing on decentralization, intelligence-led operations, and dismantling the profitable ransom economy.