Nation
Though muted, insecurity still persists amidst increase in defence budget
When President Bola Tinubu recently presented the N47.9 trillion 2025 budget proposal before the joint session of the National Assembly, about N4.91 trillion was earmarked for the defence and security sector in this fiscal year.
The Defence and Security is closely followed by infrastructure with the sum of N4.06 trillion proposed, while the sum of N2.48 trillion is allocated for the Health sector and the sum of N3.52 trillion was earmarked for the Education sector.
President Tinubu noted that the budget christened, “Budget of Restoration: Securing Peace, Rebuilding Prosperity,” strikes at the very core of his Renewed Hope Agenda and demonstrated his government’s commitment to stabilizing the economy, improving lives, and repositioning the country for greater performance.
The President added that the 2025 budget proposal again reinforces his administration’s roadmap to secure peace, prosperity, and hope for a greater future for our beloved nation.
He further stressed that “Security is the foundation of all progress. We have significantly increased funding for the military, paramilitary, and police forces to secure the nation, protect our borders, and consolidate government control over every inch of our national territory.
In the face of increased allocation to defence, is there any optimism?
Between 2019 and 2023, conflict-related events have risen, soaring from 4,808 to 24,306. While there was a temporary decline in 2022, with 11,707 events recorded, the overall trend underscores a persistent challenge that previous budgets could not tackle, raising questions of what happened to the huge resources deployed to defence?
Professor Emmanuel Abioye, a sociologist, told Business Hallmark that in 2024, “despite the tremendous milestones made to tackle insecurity the results were minimal and a lot of the success achieved was due largely to environmental factors like flooding that inhibited the movement of criminals such as bandits. “I acknowledge that there was serious firepower that dealt a blow to the top hierarchies of bandits groups, they still have some capacity. Many of them have moved to north central states of Kogi and Niger.
“What’s particularly concerning is the evolution of the conflict dynamics over time. The composition of conflict events has shifted, encompassing variations in explosions, remote violence, protests, and violence against civilians. These fluid changes suggest the adaptive nature of conflicts, presenting formidable challenges to traditional security paradigms.
Despite a substantial capital allocation of ₦285.05 billion for defence in 2023, with ₦10.62 billion earmarked explicitly for purchasing defence and security equipment, the anticipated dividends of a safer and secure nation remained elusive.
Compared to 2023, the defence ministry has experienced an 84% rise in capital allocation in 2024. While this could be a cushion to improve national defence and keep the sovereignty of the nation, there is a need to balance out allocations to the police to effectively address security concerns at the local level.
Business Hallmark checks revealed that compared to 2023, the defence ministry had experienced an 84% rise in capital allocation in 2024. While this could be a cushion to improve national defence and keep the sovereignty of the nation, there has not been a success in balancing out allocations to the police to effectively address security concerns at the local level.
Dr. Abudu Oye, an expert in security dynamic, told this medium that “though herder/farmers conflicts have significantly reduced under the current presidency compared to when President Muhammadu Buhari was there, it has not been completely eliminated as we saw recently in Jigawa. I personally think that the body language of the former president was part of the impetus that fuelled the Fulani herders attacks in parts of the country against farmers.
“Now, we have Lakurawa. According to different reports, including allegations made by the military leader of Niger that Nigeria was fully briefed about the activities of the group at its formative stage but didn’t do anything to stop it, whether the allegation is true or not, speaks volumes of the failure of intelligence in the face of huge defence allocation.”
Professor Adeagbo Moritiwon told Business Hallmark that “The insecurity landscape, with high level of kidnapping, banditry and terrorism, which had scared foreign direct investment, grounded many businesses and decreased farming in the North and tourism generally, ought to evolve for good.
“The cheering news”, he noted ” is the approval of state policing by majority of the 36 states of the federation, as required by the 1999 Constitution (amended). The National Economic Council (NEC) is expected to meet in January for further traction on the subject. In this holds a game-changer on internal security. A country whose large swathes of territories are under the control of non-state actors can never be effectively secured, more so when much of the police personnel have been diverted into private security arrangements for the elites in society, instead of their statutory public security mandate.
“Thousands of terrorists and bandits and their commanders are routinely being neutralized in the North-west, North-east and North-central of the country. In August last year, 1,166 terrorists were taken out, while 1096 of them were arrested and 721 kidnapped victims rescued, in the North-west, according to the Director of Defence Operations, Maj-General Edward Buba.
Ibilolia D. Akahome, a security expert, noted that “Nigeria stands at a crossroads, grappling with escalating insecurity amidst increased defence spending, the imperative for holistic security reforms and targeted interventions has never been more pressing. Failure to address underlying grievances, recalibrate security strategies, and foster inclusive dialogue risks perpetuating a cycle of violence that threatens the nation’s very fabric.
In the new year, the most urgent priority is that of central and northwestern Nigeria, according to Oye. In these agricultural and poor regions, the fierce competition for land frequently degenerates into deadly clashes between farmers and herders, where the absence of justice and protection from power has contributed to the proliferation of armed gangs, responsible for mass killings and kidnapping for ransom, which has become something like a big industrial complex. Then the issue of the new group Lakurawa has compounded the mix.”
For researcher Idayat Hassan, director of the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), the Tinubu administration will have to move away from “the enemy-centric, weapon-centric approach”, which prevailed under President Buhari, to “adopt a non-military approach”, tackling the underlying problems, such as “unemployment, poverty, the fight against marginalisation”. She insists on the urgency of “reforming justice”.
Finally, Oye urged President Tinubu to release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of IPOB to douse criminality and violence in the South-east of Nigeria. One question comes to mind: ‘With all these allocations to defence, when would insecurity end?