•Says terrorism, banditry, kidnapping pilling pressure on security agencies
A senior lecturer at the Department of Intelligence and Security Science, Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Dr Abdullahi Bello, has warned that Nigeria could face deeper communal instability if the country fails to strengthen collaboration among government, security agencies and communities.
He made this known at the 2026 North-West Conference on Community Security Management and Crime Prevention, organised by the Institute of Security and Strategic Studies.
The conference, which focused on the theme, “Strengthening Community Security Partnership for Sustainable Peace, Crime Prevention and Good Governance in North-West Nigeria,” brought together stakeholders to examine the region’s worsening security challenges and possible solutions.
Bello said the growing convergence of banditry, terrorism and other criminal activities was placing enormous pressure on Nigeria’s conventional security and intelligence architecture.
“The convergence of banditry and ideological insurgency across North-Western Nigeria and other parts of the country has decisively outpaced the intelligence generation capacity of conventional military and standard security forces,” he said.
According to him, tackling the crisis requires a deliberate partnership between the government, citizens and security agencies, arguing that none of the three can effectively prevent crime in isolation.
“Crime prevention is nothing but a combined effort of the citizens. When I say the citizens, the three forces Major General pointed out: the government, the people, and the security forces. Without this synergy, crime prevention is impossible,” Bello said.
Learning from Rwanda, Kenya, Colombia
Bello said his comparative study examined security models adopted by countries including Rwanda, Kenya, Colombia, South Africa and India, with the objective of identifying approaches that could be adapted to Nigeria.
He cited Kenya’s Nyumba Kumi community-security initiative as an example of community-level intelligence gathering, describing it as a mechanism capable of connecting residents with security authorities.
The lecturer also referred to Rwanda’s experience following the 1994 genocide, stressing the danger posed by ethnic polarisation and the importance of social integration.
He argued that Nigeria’s history of intermarriage and cultural interaction makes attempts to draw rigid ethnic boundaries particularly dangerous.
Bello illustrated his argument with the example of former Senate President Bukola Saraki, whom he described as embodying the complex mixture of ethnic identities found across Nigeria.
“I’ve never seen a Hausa man or Fulani man who tells me he can castrate the mixture, this amalgamated blood in him or her,” he said.
“Where do I stand? I was on a flight to China, I met former Senate President Bukola Saraki… and he told me… ‘That thing also, you know, it pained.’ Where is he going to stand?”
Bello warned that ethnic-based security initiatives could worsen tensions if they were perceived as mechanisms for one group to target another.