Presently, Nigeria is confronted with a plethora of security challenges ranging from the ubiquitous farmer-herder conflict to banditry, kidnappings, abductions, and revived secessionist movements. The list seems endless. For a long time now, the Nigerian media space has been blackened with shocking reports of persistent violent attacks nationwide.

From the north to the southeast and west, the story is not too different. Newspaper headlines provide grim and saddening reports of insurgent attacks, bandit attacks, and all sorts of criminalities every week. Despite the heroic efforts of the country’s Armed Forces in trying to stem the tide of violence, precious lives are still being lost on a daily basis.

Regrettably, the population of the country’s Armed Forces is remarkably and extremely small in relation to the country’s landmass, the expanding theatres of conflict and the citizens’ expectations regarding a military that could crush insecurity and restore peace to every part of the country. Many soldiers have paid the supreme price in the fight to defend their fatherland, and the attrition rate in the military does not drop.

Even the President, Muhammadu Buhari has acknowledged the fact that Nigeria is facing “a state of emergency” as a result of ongoing insecurity which understates the complexity and multidimensional nature of the country’s security challenges.

To underscore Nigeria’s struggles in containing these enormous security challenges, the President in a recent virtual meeting with US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, appealed to the US government to consider relocating its African Command (AFRICOM) from its current base in Germany to Nigeria or any part of Africa. The aim is to assist Nigeria and other African countries in combating worsening terrorism, banditry and other security vices.

Various diplomatic, scholarly, and practitioner perspectives have all discussed the links between the country’s current security challenges and the need for the country to rethink the structure of her security architecture.

With insecurity concerns assuming a wider scale and the theatres of engagement expanding to various nooks and crannies of the country, the urgency for massive recruitments into the Nigerian Army has never been more pressing than it is today.
https://thejournalnigeria.com/insurgency-banditry-nigeria-defeated-6-months/