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***NDA don identifies poverty, drug abuse as security threats
Economic hardship and weak social structures are making communities vulnerable to criminal infiltration and exploitation, the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) has warned.
The agency urged stronger collaboration between security agencies, researchers and communities to address the root causes of insecurity.
Chief of Defence Intelligence, Lt.-Gen. E.A.P. Undiandeye, gave the warning on Friday at the inauguration of the Africa Institute of Resilience Studies (AIRS) at the Nigerian Army Resource Centre, Asokoro, Abuja.
Undiandeye who was represented by the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, Air Vice Marshal B.R. Mamma, said Nigeria and other African countries were confronted with interconnected security threats, including terrorism, banditry, cybercrime, organised crime and communal conflicts.
The inauguration brought together senior military officers, security and intelligence officials, academics and other stakeholders under the theme, “Building a Resilient Africa: Research, Policy, Practice and Impact.”
He said these criminal acts were being compounded by climate change, mass displacement, financial crime and weak institutions.
According to him, the ability of communities, economies and institutions to withstand shocks, adapt to changing circumstances and recover from crises is as important as the capacity to respond when threats occur.
“Criminals and extremists find it far harder to infiltrate or exploit a community that is economically stable, socially cohesive and well informed,” he said.
He noted that defence intelligence was fundamentally about anticipating threats, detecting them early and providing the information required for informed decisions before harm occurred.
He said early warning would only be useful when society had the capacity and institutional structures to act on intelligence.
The DIA chief said the Armed Forces and other security agencies could not build national resilience alone, stressing the need for sound research, reliable data and evidence-based policies.
He welcomed the institute’s flagship programmes, including Community Policing Research, Community Vigilante System, Economic Resilience and Green Livelihood Initiative, and Community Resilience Index.
He said the programmes reflected the understanding that lasting security depended not only on weapons and military operations but also on sustainable livelihoods, public trust and accurate assessment of community vulnerabilities.
On community-based security initiatives,
Undiandeye cautioned that they must operate within the law, respect human rights and maintain close coordination with established security agencies.
“They should complement and never substitute for the formal security architecture of the State,” he said.
Earlier, Chairman of the AIRS Board of Directors, Prof. Rowland Ndoma-Egba, called on the Federal Government to rename the country’s National Security Strategy as the National Security and Resilience Strategy to reflect the need to build the capacity to withstand, adapt to and recover from security threats.
Ndoma-Egba said the proposed change went beyond semantics, arguing that the language of a national strategy influenced how government understood threats, allocated resources, designed institutions and measured performance.
He said security and resilience served the same purpose but were not interchangeable, explaining that while security focused on preventing, deterring and defeating threats, resilience ensured that the country continued functioning when threats materialised.
“Preventing a terrorist attack is a security task. Keeping hospitals open, markets trading and schools teaching, caring for victims and restoring public confidence after an attack is a resilience task,” he added.
Ndoma-Egba, a former Pro-Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University said a country could possess strong armed forces and intelligence services but still lack the institutional, economic and social capacity to survive a major crisis.
He observed that the 2019 National Security Strategy contained commitments to building community resilience but failed to translate them into concrete objectives, institutions and measurable indicators.
According to him, threats were not adequately ranked by likelihood and impact, while government agencies often responded to the same threats separately without effective coordination.
Ndoma-Egba proposed seven reforms, including making resilience a distinct pillar of national security, conducting regular national risk assessments, establishing a national risk register and strengthening inter-agency coordination.
Other recommendations included wider participation by state and local governments, traditional institutions, civil society and the private sector, as well as legal backing, annual progress reports and regular reviews of the strategy.
He said AIRS was ready to support the committee established by the Federal Government to review the 2019 National Security Strategy, including providing technical recommendations on the resilience component.
In his keynote address, Professor of Political Science and Defence and Security Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Prof. Toba Alabi, said Nigeria’s security challenges were increasingly interconnected and could no longer be addressed through fragmented institutional responses.
Alabi identified poverty, unemployment, drug abuse, climate change, cybercrime and weakening local economic structures as factors that could interact to create conditions for insecurity.
He said the interaction between banditry, rural poverty, competition over land and water resources, unemployment and declining local economies could make vulnerable young people susceptible to recruitment by criminal networks.
The don also drew attention to the scale of drug abuse in the country, citing the National Drug Use Survey, which estimated that about 14.3 million Nigerians aged between 15 and 64 had used drugs in the preceding year.
He warned that drug abuse went beyond an individual behavioural problem, as it could destroy household savings, weaken family relationships, undermine productivity and expose vulnerable individuals to criminal activities.
Alabi also linked climate change to insecurity, noting that flooding, desertification and changing rainfall patterns could undermine agricultural production, intensify competition over natural resources and contribute to farmer-herder conflicts.
He said misinformation and disinformation could further escalate local disagreements into wider communal tensions and security crises.
The NDA don faulted the fragmented approach to security management, saying early warning information generated at community level did not always reach relevant authorities promptly.
He said institutional mistrust, inadequate information sharing and poor documentation of lessons from previous security crises weakened the country’s ability to prevent attacks.
“The fundamental problem in such circumstances is not necessarily the absence of committed personnel or capable institutions. It is often the absence of effective institutional connections,” he said.
Alabi, who said he had served at the NDA for 35 years and as a professor for 16 years, also called for stronger collaboration between academic institutions and security practitioners to prepare future military leaders for the increasingly complex relationship between security, governance and development.
