Professor Isaac Olawale Albert of the University of Ibadan has identified what he described as “elite state capture” and political interference as major factors complicating Nigeria’s fight against terrorism and other forms of insecurity.
Albert, a professor of peace and conflict studies, said a small group of powerful Nigerians had effectively captured the state and were preventing the country from having the honest conversations and taking the difficult decisions required to resolve its major problems.
Speaking with PrimeStar News Online, Albert said Nigeria’s security challenges could not be separated from the wider problem of elite control of the state.
According to him, Nigeria has reached a point where political interests frequently interfere with issues that should ordinarily be handled professionally.
He said this was particularly dangerous in the management of security.
Albert argued that criminality and terrorism should be confronted according to professional security principles rather than through political, ethnic or religious considerations.
He said Nigeria had allowed serious security problems to become politicised and localised even when some of the threats were transnational in nature.
The professor recalled discussions he encountered in several West African countries during the early years of the Boko Haram crisis concerning the movement and training of members of extremist organisations across national borders.
He said groups associated with the insurgency operated across regional corridors, mentioning the Islamic State West Africa Province and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
Albert argued that the transnational nature of such organisations required cooperation beyond Nigeria’s borders.
He expressed concern that Nigeria had sometimes treated problems with wider regional implications as though they were purely domestic matters.
The scholar also linked the security crisis to the failure to address conflicts at their early stages.
He explained that when a conflict is allowed to continue unresolved, the number of actors involved increases, the issues multiply, and the management of the crisis becomes more difficult.
According to him, Nigeria is currently experiencing all three forms of complication.
Albert said the political leadership had a responsibility to create an environment in which security agencies could perform their duties without interference.
He cited his experience during an international security engagement in Israel as an illustration of how security personnel could operate professionally regardless of the identity or status of the person involved.
He said Nigerian security operations should similarly be guided by professional standards.
The professor also criticised what he described as the unwillingness of political elites to take decisions that could threaten their own interests.
He said many political leaders were more concerned about their political futures and family interests than with solving the country’s long-term problems.
He pointed to the fact that some political elites send their children to schools abroad while the children of ordinary Nigerians depend on public institutions at home.
Albert said the situation reflected a broader pattern in which those controlling the state were insulated from many of the consequences of the problems affecting ordinary citizens.
He described this situation as “elite state capture”, arguing that it had made it difficult for Nigerians to sit down, discuss their problems and reach agreements that could fundamentally change the country.
According to him, Nigeria does not lack people capable of identifying its problems.
Rather, the difficulty lies in creating the political conditions necessary to act on solutions.
Albert maintained that the country would continue to struggle with insecurity until political leaders were prepared to place national interests above narrow political calculations.
