Economic reforms as a sustainable security architecture — by Sunday Dare

As the campaigns progress, I have observed comments that show that many citizens and experts don’t yet understand the place of economic reforms as a sustainable security architecture. There is also a significant deficit in citizens’ appraisal of the current administration’s contributions to national security.
The Birni Gwari Security clean up by President Bola Tinubu has returned farmers to the farm, our young people into employment and a new level of Productivity achieved. Governor Uba Sanni captures it best when he narrates that story to the delight of millions and to the pain of the opposition.

The tendency is to assess security almost exclusively through kinetic interventions while overlooking the structural impact of economic policies, social interventions, and governance reforms on the conditions that sustain insecurity.

A critical observation is that states at the bottom of developmental indices often rank among those with the highest levels of fragility. This relationship reinforces the argument that insecurity cannot be addressed sustainably through military force alone. Governance is a critical instrument of national security, and development is one of its most enduring foundations.

In this regard, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic policies and social interventions deserve consideration as components of a broader, non-kinetic security strategy. To highlight but a few:

1. Educational reforms and NELFUND: Expanding access to tertiary education through the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) promotes social inclusion and creates opportunities for young people who might otherwise be excluded from educational advancement. By widening legitimate pathways to opportunity, such interventions can reduce the vulnerability of young people to recruitment by insurgent and other violent groups. Education is not merely a social investment; it is also a long-term investment in national security.
2. Local government autonomy: The push for local government autonomy has significant security implications. Effective, accountable, and adequately resourced local governments can extend public services, development initiatives, and state presence into communities that might otherwise become ungoverned or poorly governed spaces. Where citizens experience responsive governance, the opportunities for violent non-state actors to exploit state absence and public disaffection may diminish.
3. Improved FAAC allocations to states and local governments: Increased statutory allocations can expand the fiscal capacity of subnational governments to invest in infrastructure, education, healthcare, employment, and other essential services. When transparently and productively deployed, these resources can create wider, more far-reaching, and inclusive development opportunities, addressing some of the structural grievances and socioeconomic vulnerabilities that insecurity feeds upon.

The central argument, is that security must be assessed not only by the administration’s capacity to confront threats with force, but also by its ability to reduce the conditions that make insecurity possible. Kinetic operations remain necessary, particularly against active armed groups, but their gains are more likely to endure when reinforced by inclusive development, effective institutions, and responsive governance.

We must also broaden the national conversation about what constitutes security success. The developmental and social dimensions of the administration’s policies deserve a more deliberate place in that assessment.

–Dare (PhD) is Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communication