About 30 years ago, what is happening to Nigeria would have been unthinkable. The internal security of this nation was so sure that the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida fronted the formation of the ECOWAS Monitoring Group, ECOMOG, a military coalition that successfully restored order and democracy in war-torn Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Today, Nigeria is wracked by agents of insecurity linked to jihadists and nomadic groups raiding indigenous farming communities and violently seeking to take over the lands, much as the Janjaweed did under the reign of General Omar Al Bashir in Sudan.

During the Muhammadu Buhari regime, these groups were allowed to invade Nigeria from all parts of the Sahel and the Sahara Desert. They built their squatter-camps with impunity in the forests and operated with military-grade arms with hardly any response from our military and security agencies.

Since President Bola Tinubu came into office, there has been a noticeable up-tick in military activities to curb this menace. However, the military alone cannot succeed without adequate help from other government agencies created to secure the country and its people.

Prolonged military rule weakened the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, and reduced it virtually to a spectator in combating these violent criminals. Apart from the police, we have other armed paramilitary agencies such as the Directorate of State Services, DSS, and other security agencies, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, Customs, Immigration and others which can at least provide valuable intelligence from their outposts.

Why are we not seeing much action from these groups? Why are the Army and the Air Force the only military groups visibly deployed against the internal enemies of this nation?

The security architecture being used to confront these cartels of insecurity is still wrongly configured. Nepotism, the practice of favouring the reigning president’s ethnic and regional elements in the commanding heights of our security agencies and other strategic positions, plays a big role in the palpable abdication of patriotism within the military and security sectors.

Nepotism erodes the sense of belonging and foists alienation among disfavoured elements. It douses the motivation to risk their lives for the nation. A president that promotes nepotism is sabotaging his own security agenda and further endangering the security of Nigerians. To bring back full sense of patriotism in our forces, this must be addressed. All the military, police, security agencies and paramilitary agencies must join hands and resources.

More importantly, the Federal Government must encourage the states to harness their local vigilante resources to assist our troops fighting insecurity in their domains. Local vigilantes can help root out the support networks the terrorists, violent herdsmen and bandits depend upon to thrive. Any able-bodied person who is willing to join in efforts to secure their community should be engaged.

Let’s do this together.