By AMAYINDI YAKUBU
INDEED, our national security architecture continues to gulp massive budgetary allocations. With quite an extensive number of security agencies, ranging from the Nigerian Army, Air Force, Navy, the police force, Department of State Security Services, National Intelligence Agency (NIA), NSCDC and local paramilitary forces, yet the singular responsibility of safeguarding the lives and properties of Nigerians appears to be a herculean task, to which there is no solution in sight.
After spending about six months in office since assumption as DG of Department of State Services in August 2024, Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, Nigeria’s version of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), could not hide his frustration with the current security challenges plaguing Nigeria.
Ajayi, during a key security meeting in Abuja in mid-February of 2025 attended by various current and former security chiefs, including the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and the Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, proposed the collapse or rather the scraping of the traditional security framework urging for a more communal approach where locals are saddled with the responsibility of contributing to securing themselves rather than relying heavily on existing security institutions which was not refuted by any of the top ranking officials.
The DSS boss explained, “You do not expect the Nigerian Army, police and SSS to protect every Nigerian. It is not going to work. The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
The sudden change in security approach signals the frustrations and limitations of the current security landscape in the nation. For obvious reasons, this is not the first time prominent Nigerians with a proper understanding of security challenges have been demanding a new method to address the security concerns in the nation.
In 2018, former minister for defence, General Theophilus Danjuma, speaking during the maiden convocation ceremony of Taraba State University in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital, said “You must rise to protect yourselves from these people, if you depend on the Arm Forces to protect you, you will all die. This ethnic cleansing must stop in Taraba, and it must stop in Nigeria. These killers have been protected by the military, they cover them and you must be watchful to guide and protect yourselves because you have no any other place to go. The ethnic cleaning must stop now otherwise Somalia will be a child play. I ask all of you to be on your alert and defend your country, defend your state”.
Here we are after Danjuma received backlash for his comments from President Buhari’s government and the military which regarded them as inflammatory, shocking and scary urging Nigerians to desist from the advice by the senior citizen, Ajayi is proposing a new paradigm of thinking and operation that has been criticised before.
But what does the 1999 constitution as amended say on issues of self defence. To avoid all possible doubts, as clearly written in section 32 subsection (3) of the Criminal Code, a person is not criminally liable for an act when the act is reasonably necessary in order to resist actual and unlawful violence threatened to him or another person in his presence.
Corroborating with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, it states that “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of the individual or collective self defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security”.
Article 3, of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that everyone has a right to life, liberty and security. Adding to this, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Article 4, enshrines that “Human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the integrity of his person. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of this right”.
Remember, a controversy occurred when the previous late Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Taoreed Lagbaja, disagreed on the notion that Nigerians attacked by terrorists do not have the permission to bear arms to protect themselves from brutals killers.
The government over the years has been wanting in not adequately living up to the tenets of the constitution to which it has the responsibility as enshrined in section 14(2)(b) of the constitution. Because it has not been faithful to its duties, Boko Haram will not have killed 40,000 Nigerians; talk more, displacing 2.5 million Nigerians and sending 200,000 as refugees in Niger Republic. Our 100,000 children will not have overnight become orphans in insurgency.
The Supreme Court ruling in the case of UWAEKWEGHINYA v. STATE (2005) 9 NWLR (PT. 930) 27 gave the verdict that “Where a person kills another in defence of himself, such a killing is excused and it does not amount to manslaughter under the Criminal Code or culpable homicide not punishable with death under the Penal Code. The defence of self is a complete defence under the Criminal Code and the Penal Code and a successful defence of self defence leads to a discharge and acquittal of the accused person”.
The Pointer, monitoring recent commentary on the Department of State Security Director General’s proposal, analyses the response of internal security analyst Ahmed Isa to Mr Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi community based security approach.
Isa, speaking about Ajayi’s proposal, said, “The DSS’s boss comment doesn’t signal despair but a genuine strategy that builds resilience from the locals. The idea that communities should be involved in their own security is not a radical dereliction of duty; it is consistent with successful models around the world. For instance, countries like the United States of America still have Federal Security Agencies but have community based policing as complementary. So why won’t Nigeria have neighbourhood watches, local vigilante groups and community police partnerships that would work in villages, given that they have better knowledge of their terrain.”
He went further to say “What Mr Ajayi is proposing is not arming civilians with sticks, but equipping communities with the intelligence, awareness, coordination and legal backing to play a proactive role. Even in instances where communities possess some level of ammunition, guidance, profiling and authorisation are key”.
He also added that “Subjects in criticism are either totally ignorant of the proposed approach or are on a hidden sinister vendetta against the Intelligence Service and are leveraging a simple patriotic alarm, to wrongly suggest that the DSS chief wants to offload the government’s constitutional duty. Forgetting to add that he also explicitly called for collaboration for elites to engage their communities and partner with security agencies. Lamenting the president’s foreign travels or comparing Mr Ajayi’s initiative to an abandonment of duty is a baseless distraction.
Addressing the leadership problem associated with insecurity, Isa opined that “Strategic leadership requires vision, delegation and reform. DSS is recognising that if you wait until a threat reaches your doorstep, you have already failed. By empowering local communities, he is advocating pre-emptive protection and not reactive policing. Nigeria’s security problems long predate the APC and even democracy itself. While the party has not fulfilled all its promises, attributing every challenge to APC era governance oversimplifies a complex issue. Insecurity is as much a product of global arms proliferation, regional instability, climate migration and socio-economic despair as it is about political leadership”.
Just to refute the above claim, after spending about 10 years in government, the APC led government, although inheriting a myriad of security challenges from previous government, cannot boast of a major blow against insurgency, inter ethnic crisis and banditry concerns. Yet what we witness on the scene is the proliferation of more terrorism, banditry and kidnapping gangs across regions of the nation.
Although Isa supports the community based security approach, he maintained a different stand on scrapping the Department of State Security Service saying “Shutting down the DSS is not a solution; it is a provocation. In a time when citizens yearn for leadership, the worst anyone can propose is dismantling one of the few institutions positioned to respond to emerging threats. What is needed is not destruction, but reform of the total security structure of the nation, investment and more inclusive partnerships involving the locals. The DSS is, however, not waving a white flag but simply sounding an alarm and inviting Nigerians to be part of the answer.”
Though the proposition to initiate a local community security approach sounds interesting and might be viable if given a thorough consideration, shutting down an entire intelligence agency will not necessarily be the best. Reformation and restructuring such agency in line with standard practices globally should be the concern of key stakeholders.
Now that Nigerians are coming out to express their opinion on this matter, it will be imperative to take a critical view of the issue from both the perspective of support and those against the community based security approach. With the present reality we face in Nigeria and from the events that have played out across various regions of the country, the prescribed security mechanism has not been fair enough to protect people’s lives and properties. We cannot for sure say they will be able to do so tomorrow if the same approach they have been using since past decades has not yielded result.
Yet, let us also be realistic, although the law gave the people the right to protect themselves against any harm in self defence, what will they use to protect themselves? Hope we are not implying the use of sticks and cutlass against gunmen with heavy machinery and guns that some policemen have not been able to bear. Community and local vigilante groups will require nothing more than good armory to safely protect locals.
Another issue important to not be talked about much is the licensing of the guns that those requiring to secure themselves will need. There will definitely be a need for appropriate procedures for the issuance of guns to qualified persons. To avoid Nigeria becoming like Afghanistan and Somalia where guns become a common commodity in the hands of everyone, the police will need to oversee that those wielding those guns are not just able to handle them but also in the right frame of mind to avoid mass killings like we have in some western nations.
A similar event played out in Zamfara under the previous government of Mohammed Matawalle in a special government announcement, individuals were admonished to prepare to obtain guns to defend themselves against bandits with the approval of the government mandating the state commissioner of police to issue licence guns to protect themselves. Although a lot of controversy trailed the government decision, it was so glaring to know that all solutions and strategies had been exhausted for them to make such a pronouncement.
Also, it will be worthy to understand the perspectives of some security agencies like the army and police who have been reserved about the idea of granting civilians the right to use weapons to protect themselves. Their argument stems from the notion that they are equal to the task of protecting Nigerians and that arming will result in anarchy and lawlessness. Imagine a Nigeria where almost everyone has weapons, the possibility of some people perpetuating killings all in the name of self defence might be high.
This is where state policing comes into play as an integral role. Although not widely accepted by all, the emergence of state policing in Nigeria has evolved out of a shared understanding that the federal police force lacks the requisite manpower to police the whole nooks and crannies of the nation, especially places vulnerable to mischief.
All hands need to be on deck in order to properly tackle this menace called insecurity if we want a future Nigeria and future generations to come. In as much as the Federal Government has a large chunk of responsibility in securing the nation, the state and local governments need to play a remarkable role. Initiating and engaging local policing as seen in other developed countries can go a long way by providing the needed security that citizenry needs for them to sleep with their two eyes closed.
