In peace and security studies, peace is often conceptualised as a ‘public good’ – a commodity or service that is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, which should be available to all citizens within a territory (Kaul et al., 1999). The primary responsibility for providing this public good rests with the state, which is expected to maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and ensure the safety and security of its population. However, in Nigeria, this fundamental public good has become increasingly scarce and contested. This essay will argue that peace in Nigeria has become elusive primarily due to the erosion of state capacity and legitimacy. This erosion is driven by systemic governance failures, deep-seated economic inequalities, and unresolved ethno-regional tensions, which together have crippled the state’s ability to fulfil its security obligations. By examining the multifaceted nature of insecurity across the country, from the Boko Haram insurgency to widespread banditry and resource conflicts, it becomes clear that the absence of peace is a symptom of a fractured social contract between the Nigerian state and its citizens.
The Multifaceted Dimensions of Insecurity
Nigeria is not afflicted by a single conflict but by a complex web of overlapping security crises that vary in nature and intensity across its regions. These crises collectively demonstrate the state’s failure to provide the public good of security. In the North-East, the Boko Haram insurgency, which began around 2009, represents the most severe challenge to state authority. The group’s initial grievances were rooted in opposition to Western education and a desire to establish an Islamic caliphate, but its endurance is a testament to the weakness of the Nigerian state’s response (Agbiboa, 2013). The military’s efforts have been hampered by corruption, poor equipment, and low morale, allowing the insurgency to persist for over a decade, causing immense human suffering and displacing millions. The state has patently failed to protect its citizens in this region, leaving a vacuum filled by violence and terror.
Simultaneously, Nigeria’s Middle Belt has become an epicentre of violent clashes between pastoralists and sedentary farmers. These conflicts are often simplistically portrayed as ethnic or religious, but their roots lie in competition over diminishing resources like land and water, exacerbated by climate change and demographic pressures (Okoli and Atelhe, 2014). The state’s response has been largely ineffective, characterised by delayed intervention and a failure to implement sustainable solutions for land and resource management. Security forces are often accused of bias or are simply too overstretched to be effective, leading communities to feel abandoned and to resort to self-help, which in turn fuels cycles of reprisal attacks (Akinyetun, 2021).
Further illustrating this trend, the North-West has been overrun by large-scale criminal banditry and a kidnapping-for-ransom industry. What began as localised disputes has metastasised into organised crime that controls vast swathes of ungoverned territory (International Crisis Group, 2020). These bandits operate with impunity, attacking villages, schools, and major highways, demonstrating that the state’s monopoly on violence has been comprehensively broken in these areas. In the South, particularly the Niger Delta, long-standing grievances over environmental degradation and the inequitable distribution of oil wealth continue to fuel militancy and criminality, even if at a lower intensity than in the past. Each of these cases highlights a different facet of the same core problem: the Nigerian state is unable or unwilling to provide basic security for its people.
State Failure and the Erosion of the Social Contract
The elusiveness of peace in Nigeria is not merely a failure of security strategy but a profound failure of governance. The social contract, the implicit agreement where citizens cede certain rights to the state in return for protection and public services, appears to be broken. A key driver of this breakdown is systemic corruption. As Agbiboa (2013) argues, there is a clear nexus between corruption and insecurity. Funds meant for equipping and training security forces are often diverted, leaving them ill-prepared to confront well-armed non-state actors. This not only weakens their operational capacity but also corrodes the morale of personnel and the public’s trust in state institutions. When citizens perceive the security apparatus as corrupt and predatory rather than protective, their cooperation diminishes, making intelligence gathering and community policing almost impossible.
This governance deficit is compounded by severe economic challenges. Nigeria is home to a large and youthful population facing high unemployment, widespread poverty, and stark inequality (Babatunde, 2017). These socio-economic conditions create a fertile breeding ground for recruitment into armed groups. For many disaffected young people, joining an insurgency, a militant group, or a bandit gang offers a source of income, status, and power that the legitimate economy denies them. The state’s failure to create economic opportunities and deliver basic services like education and healthcare has alienated a significant portion of its population, making the promises of extremist ideologies or the lure of criminal enterprise more attractive. Therefore, the proliferation of violence is as much an economic issue as it is a security one.
The Privatisation of Security and Its Consequences
When the state fails to provide the public good of security, a predictable consequence is its privatisation. Across Nigeria, citizens and communities have turned to non-state actors to provide the protection the government cannot. This takes many forms, including the establishment of local vigilante groups, ethnic militias, and regional security outfits like the Amotekun Corps in the South-West (Hassan and Seteolu, 2021). While these groups may emerge from a genuine need for local security, they represent a fundamental challenge to the state’s authority. Their existence formalises the state’s loss of its monopoly on legitimate violence.
Furthermore, the rise of these non-state security providers is often a double-edged sword. While they may offer a degree of local protection, they can also become unaccountable and predatory themselves, engaging in human rights abuses and exacerbating inter-communal tensions. Their loyalty is often to their specific ethnic or community group rather than to the impartial rule of law, which can lead to the persecution of minority groups and the escalation of localised disputes (Abrahamsen and Williams, 2007). In some areas, citizens are forced to pay ‘protection money’ to criminal gangs, effectively replacing state taxation with extortion. This fragmentation of security provision ultimately makes peace even more elusive, creating a society where violence is decentralised and endemic, and where trust in any formal authority, state or non-state, has been dangerously eroded.
Conclusion
The statement that “peace is a public good that has been increasingly elusive” in Nigeria is a stark but accurate assessment. This essay has argued that the root of this problem lies in the progressive decay of the Nigerian state’s capacity and legitimacy. The state’s failure is not confined to a single front but is evident across the country, manifest in the brutal Boko Haram insurgency, persistent farmer-herder violence, and rampant banditry. These security crises are not isolated events but symptoms of deeper structural failings, namely endemic corruption that starves security forces of resources and a failure of economic management that leaves millions of youths disenfranchised. In response to the state’s retreat, security has become privatised, with a proliferation of non-state actors whose presence further fragments authority and often perpetuates cycles of violence. Until these fundamental issues of governance, corruption, and economic inequality are addressed, the Nigerian state will remain unable to provide its most basic public good, and lasting peace will remain a distant and elusive prospect for its citizens.
References
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Okoli, A.C. and Atelhe, G.A. (2014) ‘Nomads against natives: A political ecology of herder/farmer conflicts in Nasarawa state, Nigeria’, *American International Journal of Contemporary Research*, 4(2), pp. 76-88.
