INSECURITY AS AN INDUSTRY: How Much More Must Nigerians Pay For Failure?

By Dahiru Yusuf Yabo

The recent deduction of approximately ₦500 billion from May 2026 FAAC revenues for emergency security interventions, alongside additional deductions that reportedly brought total subtractions to about ₦952 billion before revenue sharing, should alarm every patriotic Nigerian. Not because security does not deserve funding, but because Nigerians are increasingly confronted with a troubling question: how much more public money must be spent before citizens begin to feel genuinely safe?

No serious nation can compromise on security. The protection of lives, property and territorial integrity remains the primary constitutional responsibility of government.

Therefore, expenditure on security, in itself, is not the issue. The real issue is the glaring absence of a clear relationship between ever-increasing security spending and the worsening security realities confronting ordinary Nigerians.

For more than a decade, insecurity has dominated national discourse. Every year brings larger defence budgets, fresh emergency interventions, supplementary appropriations, special security votes, foreign loans, procurement contracts and new operational code names. Yet, despite these enormous financial commitments, terrorists continue to attack communities, bandits continue to raid villages, kidnappers continue to operate with audacity, and criminal groups continue to challenge state authority across vast territories.
The contradiction is becoming impossible to ignore.

At a time when security allocations have reached unprecedented levels, many parts of the country continue to experience unprecedented levels of insecurity. Communities remain displaced. Farmers are unable to cultivate their lands. Highways remain dangerous. Schools are periodically disrupted. Businesses struggle under uncertainty. Even retired military generals and senior security personnel have not been spared from the insecurity that has engulfed the nation.

The question therefore becomes unavoidable: what exactly are Nigerians getting in return for these endless expenditures?

In any functional system, increased investment should produce measurable results. If insecurity continues to escalate despite trillions of naira committed to combating it, then government owes citizens a comprehensive explanation. Nigerians deserve to know what specific outcomes have been achieved, what objectives have been met, what territories have been permanently secured, what criminal networks have been dismantled, and what benchmarks are being used to evaluate success or failure.

Unfortunately, public accountability in the security sector often appears limited to announcing new expenditures while providing little information regarding the effectiveness of previous ones.

The consequence is a growing public perception that insecurity itself is gradually becoming an industry—an endless cycle of crises, emergency allocations, supplementary budgets, intervention funds and procurement exercises, with no corresponding urgency in evaluating results. Whether this perception is entirely fair or not is secondary. What matters is that it exists, and it is gaining traction because citizens continue to witness worsening insecurity alongside increasing expenditure.

Many Nigerians now fear that insecurity has become more profitable to certain interests than its actual resolution. Every new attack generates calls for more funding. Every security setback produces demands for additional resources. Every failure appears to justify larger budgets. Yet meaningful accountability remains elusive.

This is a dangerous trajectory for any democracy.

National security cannot be treated as a perpetual financial black hole into which trillions of naira disappear without rigorous oversight, independent audits and measurable performance assessments. Security expenditure should not be exempt from accountability simply because it falls under the sensitive category of national defence.

On the contrary, the larger the allocation, the greater the obligation for transparency.

Government must therefore move beyond announcing figures and begin demonstrating outcomes. Nigerians deserve periodic public assessments of security spending, operational effectiveness, procurement efficiency and strategic achievements. Citizens must be able to see the connection between the sacrifices they make and the security benefits they receive.

The issue is not whether security should be funded.

The issue is whether security funding is producing security.
The issue is not whether government should spend more.
The issue is whether government is spending wisely, effectively and accountably.

A nation cannot continuously allocate more money to security while accepting deteriorating security conditions as normal. Nor can it expect citizens to remain silent when resources continue to increase but results remain largely invisible.

The true measure of security expenditure is not the size of the budget, the volume of procurement contracts, or the magnitude of emergency interventions.

The true measure is whether citizens can travel safely, farm peacefully, conduct business confidently and sleep without fear.

Until security spending is tied to measurable outcomes, independent oversight and genuine accountability, Nigerians will continue to ask a question that government has yet to answer satisfactorily:

How much more must the nation spend before insecurity stops being an emergency and starts becoming a solved problem?

Hon. Dahiru Yusuf Yabo, PGD-CMPC, MCM, MPPA – Political and Security Affairs Analyst