Deconstructing Nigeria’s security architecture in the 21st century

The dilemma of a nation at war on all fronts

Abstract

The 21^st Century has been uniquely marked by untold degree of insecurity with attendant horrendous consequences on man, and his environment. Viewed from its multi-faceted perspective, security as a concept has several dimensions including economic security, energy security, physical security, environmental, food, border, as well as cyber security. Most disturbing is the fact that man has remained the prime cause, and at the same time, the ultimate source of solution to the numerous security challenges that have bedeviled him. Within the Nigerian context, and with emphasis on physical security of lives and properties of citizen, that the nation’s security challenges have ever-stretched the capacity of Nigeria’s security agencies is to say the least. Consequently, the cloud of social instability in terms of emerging terrorist activities, religious fundamentalism, extreme violent crimes, official corruptions, vandalization of oil pipe lines among others threaten the peace, security and viability of the Nigerian nation. While a wide range of literature have examined overall consequences of Nigeria’s Security challenges on Nigeria’s citizenry, very little attention has been given to the historical background to the security challenges in Nigeria. Besides, existing literature also tend to downplay the causal relationship between the breakdown of Nigeria’s security architecture and the raging wars between Nigerian armed forces and secessionist ethno-regional militant groups. Deploying various secondary sources of data collection, the papers establishes a nexus between the historical evolution of Nigeria as a political unit and the current myriad of security challenges, while at the same time suggesting ways of curbing security challenges in Nigeria.