By Amb. Simon Ejike Eze
Great Nigerians, I wish to begin with the admission that it is a critical time for our country. But just immediately, I wish to state clearly that it is also such a rare moment that presents our dear country the opportunity to act and be decisive like never before.
When the United States President, Donald J. Trump, issued his unambiguous resolve to eliminate terrorist networks operating on Nigerian soil, he spoke to a sovereign nation. We have the right to govern ourselves as we please, but the reality of international security and power politics is that he spoke as the commander of the world’s pre-eminent military power, and custodian of a global counter-terrorism architecture.
The takeaway from the entire exchange, including what will likely follow, is in the strategic message that a questioned sovereignty failure invites intervention. The question of the moment is not in the message itself, but what we do with it to demonstrate that we are a sovereign nation; that is, to show that we possess the decisive capacity and political will to guarantee the protection of lives and property of state and citizens.
Our immediate neighbour, the Sahel, is already troubled. Nigeria cannot afford to become the next theatre where foreign boots write the epilogue to our domestic tragedy. But this demands more from us than rhetorics and nationalist posturing: we must rise up to the occasion!
What is confronting us is a ledger of blood. The Council on Foreign Relations Nigeria Security Tracker documents over 63,000 fatalities from organised violence between 2015 and 2025. That averages one Nigerian life extinguished every 90 minutes, 17 every day, and 120 every week for a decade on account of organized violence that could have been checked by the state.
In Enugu North Senatorial District, where I had the privilege to contest under the APC banner in the 2023 General Elections as the senatorial candidate, the Nsukka-Ugwuogo-Enugu road has become a gauntlet of ambushes. Unprosecuted massacre in Eha-Amufu, Isiuzo Local Government, and Uzo-uwani Local Government. It is long gone when these should be seen as isolated incidents, rather than nodes in a national and transnational network that stretch from the Sambisa Forest through the Lake Chad Basin to the Liptako-Gourma tri-border region. Boko Haram, ISWAP, Ansaru, and the so-called “bandits” share logistics, financing, and ideology, maintaining a complex financial network that transcends the borders of this country.
This is 21st-century hybrid warfare, and it is time to rise beyond responding with 20th-century press conferences. The primary duty of the state is the security and welfare of the people. Today, it is the genuine feeling of a majority of men and women of this country and beyond that, that covenant was, at some points, badly breached. Thus, it was no sign of weakness but strength and resolve that the President, during his speech following Trump’s concern, admitted to the breach of that covenant. I share the same optimism with Mr. President that the breach of that covenant is not irreversible.
I am reminded of President Tinubu’s Chatham House declaration of December 2022, and this still remains the golden standard for me: reform and decentralise the police force to reflect local realities, expand the police and military sizes, equip and update the training to reflect contemporary security complexities, and partner with our neighbors and allies to effectively and sustainably combat the security challenges. Beyond campaign flourishes, we preached the above message of Mr. President to the Nigerian people, to whom we campaigned, as the strategic blueprint that he was going to prioritise. It is, though not late, but the good people of Nigeria have genuinely waited for these promises to be fulfilled.
The problems that confront us today are too many, and, to be kind to ourselves, ours is not a case in isolation. All over the world, the battle against terrorism rages as does terrorism itself. The evolution of artificial intelligence has further complicated modern terrorism, but so also modern warfare by states across the world. Our case is worsened by the porosity of our borders, collapse of social infrastructures, political trust, religion, and ethnic loyalty over state.
Amidst these collapses, and the Trump concern, I see a window of opportunity for the government to perform the task of asserting itself. That task is to rebuild the confidence and faith of citizens in the state and government of the day. In my considered opinion, I see pointers to this self-assertion by the government of the day.
Following the recalibration of the national service chiefs, is the decision of Mr President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s proposal for a comprehensive reform of security training facilities nationwide. These, without doubt, are commendable pointers to the willingness for security reforms. No less so is the genuineness and a sense of seriousness to this willingness by the National Economic Council, demonstrated in their appointment of Dr. Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, the Enugu state Governor, as chairman of the committee tasked with overhauling training institutions for security agencies across the country.
Anyone conversant with the key security, infrastructural and economic reforms and policies of Dr Mbah in Enugu, especially his deployment of digital technologies in scaling up capabilities and innovations, will attest to the the fact that his appointment reflects the desired competence which the Nigerian people expect from decisions regarding their quest for security reforms. Dr Peter Ndubuisi Mbah is a systems reformer. This is evidenced in his establishment of a state command-and-control centre that integrates CCTV, drone telemetry, and emergency response in real time. I am confident that his appointment has largely been informed by the wish for his replication of the model he has constituted in Enugu. His committee must now scale this model nationally.
The current police status in Nigeria appears to produce constables who can march but cannot interrogate a mobile money trail. It is my expectation that Mbah’s remit will embed modules on counter-terrorism tradecraft, digital forensics, community intelligence fusion, and ethical use of force. The target has to be, among others, that the Nigeria Police Force should graduate officers who can dismantle a kidnap syndicate before the ransom is paid, not merely cordon a village after it has been razed.
We must return to intelligence as the decisive enabler. Nigeria’s Department of State Services and National Intelligence Agency possess the mandate and the capability. We require a National Fusion Centre for instant and detailed tracking. There are models all over the world, and we can equally develop our home-grown models. It is ridiculous to have terrorists operate with mobile phones freely while we tell the nation that the terrorists and bandits elude us or are embedded in societies. Our NIN, BVN, SIM registration, and vehicle plate data can be cross-referenced in milliseconds. Every ransom demand must trigger an automated trace; every terrorist propaganda video must be geolocated within the hour. Enugu State’s 1,700 Forest Guards — recruited ward by ward, equipped with body-cams and drones offer a replicable template with regard to our forests.
Like the President admitted, we appeared to have unfortunately delayed our actions and the expectations of Nigerians have attained almost an irreversible impatience. Rather than consider this demonstration of impatience as too daring, we must seize the opportunity it presents us to take drastic measures against insecurity and all forms of terrorism. Thus, an obvious and more decisive takeoff in this task of self and sovereign assertion is to designate terrorists as terrorists, degrade their capabilities, and destroy their networks.
The amnesty-industrial complex must be dismantled. Operation Safe Corridor has graduated over 1,063 “repentant” Boko Haram fighters since 2016 with a worrying percentage re-defection, and sabotage of the war against terrorism. Reintegrating a terrorist into the society or same military he sought to destroy is not deradicalisation, it is state-sponsored recidivism. Terrorists must face the full panoply of the law: trial, conviction, and, where appropriate, execution. The era of differential justice must end now! The law is blind or it is meaningless.
As a retired intelligence officer, I consider myself a corporate member in the responsibility to devise and advise on means to achieve the state’s primary target of the security of lives and property. Having campaigned under Mr. President in the same party, sharing the same progressive ideology and promises to the people as the APC senatorial candidate in the 2023 General Elections for Enugu North Senatorial District, I equally consider myself within the responsibility to restore faith and confidence in the nation in this worrying situation. With the long awaited movement of the Enugu state Governor, Dr Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, into the All Progressives Congress, the window for more robust collaborations has just been opened. He is not only welcomed into the party, but has the full support of the people of Enugu state, who are proud of his elevation into the decisive role of ensuring the realization of the ultimate duty of this government, security wise.
Trump’s threat must be for us the catalyst, not the substitute, for our resolve as a nation. The blood of our citizens murdered in their farms, raped or displaced from their places cry out. We must shun negotiation with terrorists, worse of all the negotiation that pardons some groups and takes it hard on the other. Leadership that negotiates with terrorists negotiates away its own legitimacy.
The Nigerian people demand action, not press statements. The time for half-measures is over. Nigeria must now secure itself, or history will secure Nigeria’s place in the annals of questioned states. It gives pleasure, however, to know that, far from a diplomatic confrontation, the government of the day understands the raised concerns of security failures in Nigeria as a political and operational opening for decisive reform. In the coming days, we hope to see this understanding play out.
Amb. Eze is a retired security and intelligence expert and a former APC senatorial candidate for Enugu North Senatorial District, and writes from Enugu.
