Poor economy, governance weaken Nigeria’s security: Experts

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS Nigeria (AA) - Nigeria's worsening security situation is caused by increasing poverty rate, inadequate manpower and a large swath of ungoverned spaces that criminal gangs have long occupied, according to security experts in the country.

"A lack of persistent government control for the past decade has ensured that these [bandits] are now unchallenged," Fulan Nasrullah, executive director of the Conflict Studies and Analysis Project at Global Initiative for Civil Stabilization (GICS), a security think-tank, told Anadolu Agency.

Nasrullah said the lack of effective policing of the countryside has created a vacuum and led to armed groups and criminal gangs taking over villages and carving out territories.

"Kidnapping, rural banditry, cattle rustling and extortion from miners and communities are fuelling the groups," he added.

Nigeria's northwest has come under intense attacks by armed groups staging high-profile kidnapping and raids on local communities -- with hundreds being killed in the process.

Police said last week that 1,071 persons have been killed and 685 others kidnapped in Nigeria since January, most of them from the country's northwest where armed gangs have been on the rampage.

Quoting figures from the Global Initiative for Civil Stabilization (GICS), Nasrullah said at least two persons are abducted in the region every day.

"The crisis first began in 2008 as cattle rustling, which has gradually expanded over the years into rural banditry in which they attack communities and steal and burn," he said.

"From 2015, it has slowly evolved into a kidnapping campaign, with roads now unsafe to use, and tens of thousands of dollars being paid as ransoms per victim," he added.

- ‘Breakdown’ of socioeconomic structure

Freedom Onuoha, a counterinsurgency expert, said the crisis exposes the “breakdown” of socioeconomic and security structure of the country.

"Nigeria is increasingly witnessing the widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Those who are deprived of economic opportunities are accessing livelihood through criminality," he told Anadolu Agency.

Onuoha said the country's "centralized" security system is unable to cope with the complex nature of the crisis. He said the crisis is worsened by "mediocrity" in governance.

"The solution would include urgent review of the basis of our national security architecture to retool it to effectively anticipate and respond to evolving security challenges," according to him.

"There is also the need to restructure some security establishments and adopt a more robust decentralized security framework," the security expert added.

Insisting that the country is “underpoliced”, Nasrullah called for recruitment and training of more policemen “to checkmate armed gangs”.

The crisis in the northwest has raised fears about possible links between the armed gangs and Boko Haram terrorist group or militias fleeing Africa's crisis-ridden Sahel region.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, who faces criticism for not doing enough to tackle the crisis, said on Sunday his government remains committed to ending the menace.