By Rekpene Bassey
Si vis pacem, para bellum — if you desire peace, prepare for war. This Roman adage echoes through the corridors of Nigerian history, yet it rang with a peculiar irony during the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari. A former military general once hailed as a Spartan guardian of order, Buhari ascended to power in 2015 bearing the weight of public expectation.
Nigerians, weary from the lawlessness of insurgents and the corruption of elites, hoped that the general would govern with the rigour of a commander and the prudence of a statesman.
What transpired, however, was a complicated legacy, where a diffusion of new and decentralised threats often offset military success against insurgents.
Indeed, Boko Haram, the scourge of the Northeast and the symbol of Nigeria’s long-standing security crisis, did suffer significant attrition during Buhari’s administration. The group’s capacity to launch high-profile assaults diminished, with fatalities reportedly declining by over 90% between 2015 and 2021.
But this statistical triumph masked a troubling reality: Boko Haram did not die. It splintered. It adapted. Offshoots like ISWAP arose, exploiting Nigeria’s porous borders and ungoverned spaces. What the government hailed as a success was, in fact, a strategic mutation, one that ensured the threat endured beyond the battlefield.
As the Northeast saw fewer suicide bombings, new theatres of violence emerged. In the forests of the North-West and across the Middle Belt, banditry took root; feral and transactional. Heavily armed groups abducted villagers, schoolchildren, and commuters with impunity. Ransoms were negotiated on radio waves.
Communities became zones of silence, ruled not by law but by the logic of terror. The state, too slow and too distant, became a ghost in the lives of those it was meant to protect.
The farmer-herder conflict added another layer to the unfolding security drama. With climate change drying up grazing paths and arable land shrinking, herders pushed further into farming communities, often clashing over land and livelihoods. However, this ecological dispute, left unattended, assumed ethnic and religious dimensions, particularly in Benue, Taraba, and Plateau, further entrenching distrust and violence. It was a crisis born of environmental neglect but inflamed by a failure of statecraft.
Despite rising budgetary commitments to the security sector, peaking at over ₦2 trillion by 2022, progress remained elusive. Nigeria’s military and police institutions, starved of reform, continued to operate under outdated doctrines.
Corruption, turf wars among agencies, and low morale sapped the potency of every initiative. As one security analyst observed, the government fought the fire but never rebuilt the fire brigade. Money flowed, but strategy stagnated.
Military operations became frequent, almost ritualistic. Lafiya Dole, Python Dance, and Crocodile Smile rolled out across the country like martial theatre. Some operations yielded tactical gains, but many were criticised for human rights abuses and a lack of community engagement. The armed forces, trained for war, were now police and judge in one, and in many cases, executioner. The social contract cracked as the state flexed its muscles without accountability.
One controversial initiative, Operation Safe Corridor, sought to de-radicalise and reintegrate repentant Boko Haram fighters. Though noble in theory, the program drew outrage for its opacity.
Civilians were allegedly coerced into the process, and women victims were often treated the same as their abusers. Here, justice and mercy collided, and neither emerged whole. Aristotle’s counsel, that justice lies in giving each his due, seemed lost in the administration’s moral fog.
This was the central weakness of Buhari’s security vision: it equated national security solely with military strength. But peace is not the mere absence of conflict; it is the presence of justice, equity, and opportunity. You cannot build trust by bombing your way to it. You cannot deploy troops to fill the void left by poverty, youth unemployment, and systemic alienation. As Plato warned, a city without justice is no true polis; it is merely a gang with walls.
To Buhari’s credit, the administration did deliver on specific infrastructure promises. The completion of the Abuja-Kaduna railway, the Second Niger Bridge, and several expressways represented tangible progress. Infrastructure, after all, is a form of security.
A bridge can unite where a gun divides. But development cannot thrive in a climate of fear. Roads mean little when they lead into ambushes. Schools are worthless when gunmen cart off students.
The government also strengthened regional collaboration, working with neighbours like Chad and Niger through the Multinational Joint Task Force. These alliances occasionally yielded operational victories, but Nigeria’s internal dysfunctions undercut them. Intelligence remained poorly coordinated under him, and turf battles between agencies often led to deadly silences when action was most needed.
Perhaps the most defining moment of Buhari’s security legacy came not from insurgents or bandits, but from the youth. The #EndSARS protests of 2020 began as a cry against police brutality, but swelled into a national movement against state neglect. It was a moral referendum on the government’s relationship with its people.
Yet instead of reform, the state responded with force. The Lekki Toll Gate incident: a flashpoint of suppressed truth; eroded public trust. “Who gave the order?” remains an unanswered and unacknowledged question.
Thus, Buhari’s legacy on security is a study in contrasts. There were reductions in insurgent activity and infrastructural investments that laid the foundations for integration. But there were also unaddressed wounds, proliferating threats, and a failure to reconcile strength with justice. The regime preserved certain borders but weakened the nation’s internal bonds.
What, then, must Nigeria do to scale up national security in the post-Buhari era? First, the country must reimagine what security means. It must be people-centred, intelligence-led, and technology-driven. Drones, surveillance systems, and forensic labs. These are not luxuries but necessities in the age of asymmetric threats. The state must see its citizens not as suspects, but as allies in the grand project of nationhood.
State policing, long resisted, must now be seriously considered and pursued. A federation of over 200 million people cannot rely on a centralised police force modelled on colonial logic. With constitutional safeguards and oversight, state and community policing can help localise responses, rebuild trust, and restore a sense of presence in areas where the federal government is perceived as distant.
Equally important is a justice system that functions with speed and fairness. The prison of delayed justice, as the sages taught, is itself a kind of violence. Police reform, judicial independence, and human rights enforcement must form the tripod upon which proper security rests.
And finally, Nigeria must confront the economic roots of violence. Hunger, joblessness, and exclusion feed every insurgency. The guns will fall silent only when the economy roars with opportunity; when the Nigerian youth sees more promise in education than in extremism, and more dignity in labour than in violence.
The Buhari years are over, but their lessons remain. Insecurity cannot be managed; it must be transformed. Governance must rise to the level of statesmanship. The soul of the country depends not on barbed wire and battalions, but on the quiet, persistent work of building justice, dignity, and shared destiny.
For in the end, national security is not merely about war; it is the highest art of governance. And like all great arts, it demands vision, virtue, and vigilance.
*Rekpene Bassey, President of the African Council on Narcotics (ACON), is also a security and drug prevention expert.
