NIGERIA@59: A SECURITY PARADIGM BEYOND BOOTS AND GUNS
One of the basic human needs is security. It is a major concern at global, continental, regional and national levels. It is one of the constitutional responsibilities of a government.
Successive governments in Nigeria since 1960 have made efforts to keep the country and its citizens safe from internal insurrection and external aggression. In the last 59 years, Nigeria has confronted various security challenges, gone through different military interventions, and survived a civil war.
Since the return to civil rule in 1999, Nigeria has continued to grapple with various security challenges which in some, instances, threaten its corporate existence. The democratic experiment of the fourth republic fits into categorization of emerging democracies by Prof. Paul Collier, in his work, “Wars, Guns & Votes: Collier notes that such countries face structural insecurity.
Successive administrations have lived through, and have tried to address, the Niger Delta crisis occasioned by oil exploration, ethnic and religious conflicts, farmer/herders’ clashes, political violence, kidnapping, banditry, Boko Haram, among others.
Since 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari has made consistent effort at addressing security challenges his administration inherited. This is to be expected as security was one of his campaign promises.
Significant progress has been made in degrading Boko Haram and addressing other security challenges by the armed forces and other security agencies.
“In the last four years, we have combatted the terrorist scourge of Boko Haram. We owe a debt of gratitude to our gallant men and women in arms, through whose efforts we have been able to achieve the present results”, President Muhammadu Buhari has acknowledged.
In his Independence Day address to the nation, the President disclosed that “The Ministry of Police Affairs has been resuscitated to oversee the development and implementation of strategies to enhance internal security”. This may be considered a strategic response to the rising wave of banditry, robbery and abductions across the land.
Despite these efforts, it is important to note that it is time for a paradigm shift in Nigeria’s approach to national security. It is time to deploy a holistic approach.It is time to de-emphasise physical security and focus on human security.
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Proponents of human security place centrality of human needs as the core of security as against the traditional approach where the state takes precedence. A security architecture that deploys a whole-development approach that embraces peace-building, rehabilitation, reconstruction and above all, socip-economic development and social security for all citizens. This approach, which is in line with global best practice, links national development and security.
Therefore, security should focus on addressing critical development indicators such as poverty, inequality and unemployment. These indicators determine a country’s level of ‘internal security.
Achieving sustainable peace and security in any nation is not necessarily about the numbers of ‘boots on the ground’ or guns fired – these are essential to physical security for sure. But much more important is addressing human conditions that allow for exclusion, deprivation, and lack of opportunities.
While developed economies have long embraced this positive and time-honoured security approach, developing countries such as Nigeria are still lagging behind due to, but not limited to corruption, policy inconsistency and poor institutions.
In the medium and long term, reducing instability in the country is possible if governments at all levels focus on human security needs that address what experts call ‘material sufficiency’ – what Caroline Thomas calls ‘satisfaction of basic material needs of mankind… which at most basic levels include ‘food, shelter, education & healthcare.
As the President admitted in the speech: “Good Governance and Economic Development cannot be sustained without an enabling environment of peace and security. It is also clear that peace and security, cannot be sustained when governance and economic development is not linked to human security.
Nigeria requires a security approach that the United Nations cconsiders ‘human-centred’.
To build a safe and secured future for all Nigerians, present and future leaders and indeed citizens must understand not just the human approach to security, but a collective approach that also places responsibility on citizens.
We must heed the call by former UN Secretary General, Kofi Anan: “We must… broaden our view of what is meant by peace and security. Peace means much more than the absence of war. Human security can no longer be understood in purely military terms. Rather, it must encompass economic development, social justice, environmental protection, democratization, disarmament among others”.
