From a keynote address to the Nigerians in Diaspora Organization Americas Annual General Meeting on September 4, 2021
We cannot build sustainable security in Nigeria if we, as a country, do not understand the exact nature and sources of today’s insecurity and then translate this understanding into deep-rooted security and political reforms.
Nigeria’s security threats since independence in 1960 have largely been internal, rather than external. To be sure, the country has faced threats from beyond its borders, from the situation in Chad in the early 1980s – when Libya’s army intruded into Chad several times in cooperation with dissident Chad factions – to the current crisis of cross-border terrorism in the region, such as ISWAP (Islamic State West African Province), an opportunistic rival of Boko Haram (BH),
But we can trace the prevailing collapse of security in Nigeria primarily to national political and economic factors, including violent herder/farmer conflicts and rising secessionist agitations in the southeast and southwestern parts of Nigeria, plus local ISWAP and BH militant groups.
Source: Africa Focus