Insecurity wears different faces across Nigeria, solutions must be regionalised – Ikiebe
Nigeria must abandon the one-size-fits-all approach to tackling insecurity and instead adopt region-specific solutions tailored to local realities, says Richard Ikiebe, the chairman of the BusinessDay management board and president of the Initiative for Socioeconomic Development and Communication (INSDEC).
Speaking on BDTV’s Big Story segment on Monday, Ikiebe emphasised that the nation’s decade-long security crisis has persisted because authorities treat insecurity as a monolithic issue, instead of recognising its diverse regional dimensions.
“Insecurity in Nigeria has various expressions, characteristics, and drivers,” the researcher said. “To get to the root of it, we need regional studies that reveal what’s really feeding the crisis in each area.”
He noted that INSDEC, in collaboration with the UK-registered International Organization for Peace and Social Justice (PSJ-UK), chose Benue and Imo States for a recent study not to isolate the problem to those areas, but to validate broader research findings with regional fieldwork.
“The data clearly shows that insecurity wears different faces in different regions,” he said.
Highlighting findings from their “Unraveling Nigeria’s Insecurity Crisis” report, Dr. Ikiebe outlined the key drivers of violence across various zones:
Northeast: The main threat remains Boko Haram’s insurgency, which has destabilised communities for over a decade.
North Central: Violence is driven by insurgent movements, including ISWAP and armed Fulani militants targeting rural villages.
Northwest: Banditry is rampant, with large-scale kidnappings, cattle rustling, and mass village invasions by gunmen on motorcycles.
Southwest: The region battles kidnapping, cultism, and even reports of organ trafficking, with criminal cells hiding in forests.
South-South: Oil-related crimes dominate, including illegal refining and pipeline vandalism.
Southeast: The zone faces agitation from pro-Biafra separatist group IPOB, alongside criminal violence in parts.
Ikiebe warned that without acknowledging these regional nuances, the government risks prolonging the crisis.
“We cannot solve the problem in the southwest the same way we solve it in the northwest. Each region demands its own strategy,” he said.
Source: Business Day
