TINUBU'S SECURITY REFORMS: BUILDING STABILITY THROUGH STRATEGY, NOT SHOCK ~By Uzo Amadi

Abuja

uzocamadi@yahoo.com

When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office in 2023, he met a national security architecture that was visibly fractured and institutionally fatigued. Years of inconsistent policies, overlapping mandates, and politicised co-mand structures had produced a system long reactive, rarely proactive, and too compromised to deliver the safety Nigerians deserve.

What the President inherited was not merely insecurity.

It was a deeply entrenched dysfunction. Agencies often worked at cross-purposes, intelligence was compromised from within, and the loyalties of both active and retired security chiefs were, at best, uncertain.

President Tinubu's early restraint in overhauling the security leadership was therefore not timidity, but calculation. To sack or confront the old guard immediately might have exposed intelligence networks and triggered resistance within the ranks. Confronting such a system head-on would have been ill-advised, even disastrous.

Instead, Tinuu chose a more diplomatic and gradualist strategy. A strategy that rebuilds from within, depoliticises command operations, and creates parallel layers of competence.

This approach, rather than violently shaking the boat, seeks to make entrenched inefficiencies obsolete through steady reform, institutional renewal, and quiet replacement of outdated systems. This patient, layered strategy is now beginning to redefine Nigeria's internal security doctrine, signaling a shift from reactive enforcement to proactive security management.

At the heart of Tinubu's reform agenda is decentralisation with accountability. For decades, governors were styled "Chief Security Officers" without the authority or instruments to act. Security decisions emanated from Abuja, often detached from local realities.

Tinubu's approval for the establishment of appropriately trained and equipped forest guards by States marks a decisive shift from that outdated model.

Under the new framework, States can now recruit, train, and deploy forest security personnel to reclaim and protect territories long abandoned to bandits, kidnappers, and insurgents. This is not just tactical, it is a strategic reclamation of Nigeria's hinterland.

The logic of State policing has also never been stronger. Nigeria's size and diversity make a single, central police force both impractical and ineffective.

The administration's consultations with the National Assembly, governors, and security experts on creating a multi-tier policing system show clear intent. A properly designed State police would enhance local intelligence, build community trust, and free the Federal Police to focus on national crimes and terrorism.

The President's strategy acknowledges a truth long ignored: Nigeria's security cannot be solved from the centre alone. By empowering States, Tinubu is reclaiming the nation's security sovereignty, the ability to protect itself through multiple, complementary layers of authority. These reforms must now be shielded from political disruption and codified into law through a National Security Framework Act. Nigeria's future stability depends on this continuity.

President Tinubu inherited a broken system but resisted a noisy revolution. Instead, he chose the path of quiet transformation that is methodical, inclusive, and forward-looking. In time, this strategic patience may well prove to be his most enduring contribution to Nigeria's internal security evolution.