Beyond A Defence Minister, by Alabidun Shuaib AbdulRahman 

When the name of General Christopher Gwabin Musa (rtd) was announced as the new Minister of Defence for Nigeria, many citizens did not cheer — they exhaled. In a country where hope often flickers faster than security, each new appointment carries the burden of history. Nigerians are tired of seeing ministers swap titles, while insecurity deepens, kidnappings proliferate, and communities collapse.

To understand the challenge he inherits, one must revisit the history of Nigeria’s Defence Ministry from 1999 onward. The first in the Fourth Republic was retired Lieutenant-General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, who assumed office in June 1999 after democracy was restored. Danjuma’s appointment was meant to restore honour and discipline to a military tainted by years of dictatorship. His immediate task was political: reassure Nigerians that the Armed Forces would no longer be politics by another name, and help transition from military rule to civilian governance. He helped steer budgets toward rebuilding and re-equipping, initiating what was then a credible attempt at professionalising Nigeria’s armed forces. But those efforts addressed conventional defence, not the emerging internal threats. Danjuma’s tenure ended in May 2003 with the civilianization of leadership but by then the foundations for internal security challenge management remained shallow.

In July 2003, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso became Defence Minister under President Obasanjo’s second term, and thus inaugurated an era of civilian political stewardship at the Ministry of Defence. His time, stretching to May 2007, coincided with the earliest stirrings of what would become insurgency. Boko Haram was still marginal, largely ignored by national security architecture focused on external defence. Kwankwaso’s strengths lay in politics and governance, but not in shaping a doctrinal shift toward internal security or insurgency response. The defence ministry under him remained oriented toward traditional armed-forces metrics of equipment, formal deployments, diplomacy while Nigeria lurched toward a reality that required intelligence-driven, community-rooted internal security frameworks.

When Mahmud Yayale Ahmed took over in July 2007 and served until September 2008, the writing was already on the wall. Boko Haram had begun to emerge visibly, yet the response remained bureaucratic. Yayale Ahmed brought civil-service credentials and an administrative mindset, not military temperament. The ministry managed procurement, sustained the flagging morale of the forces after years of underfunding, but did little to evolve institutional capacity for asymmetric threats.

By late 2008 and early 2009, under Shettima Mustapha and subsequently the retired Major-General Godwin Abbe, Nigeria entered what would become its darkest chapter of internal insecurity. In 2009, Boko Haram erupted violently. Abbe, a former soldier turned politician, presided during the crescendo of that crisis. The response was drastic but superficial: raids, crackdowns, mass arrests, but little reckoning with root causes. Communities were ravaged, trust was eroded, animosity deepened between the security forces and civilians. The violence may have been met with force, yet the underlying grievances, intelligence failures and governance vacuums were never addressed. The result was predictable: suppression bred resentment, insurgency morphed and scattered, later to resurge with renewed vigour.

When the baton passed to civilian ministers Adetokunbo Kayode (2010–2011), Haliru Mohammed Bello (2011–2012), and Olusola Obada (2012–2013), Nigeria sank deeper into chronic internal instability. Their tenures focused largely on procurement, revitalizing weapon stocks and administrative reshuffles, rather than systemic overhaul. There were no comprehensive reforms of policing, no robust intelligence-sharing across agencies, no serious investment in community-based early-warning or conflict-prevention mechanisms. Some may have tried to manage manpower, restructure departments or buy equipment, but the enemy had changed: asymmetric war, civilian-targeted violence, kidnapping rings, banditry, communal conflicts. The Ministry remained geared for conventional threats. As a result, Nigeria drifted.

A temporary caretaker period under Labaran Maku (2013–2014) barely registered any shift. Then came a moment of cautious optimism. Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, whose career spanned multiple security and intelligence roles, was appointed Defence Minister in March 2014. His background and reputation suggested a possible turning point: here was a man who understood threats beyond the battlefield. He attempted, in the brief span he held office, to emphasise intelligence coordination, inter-agency cooperation, and reform of structural leakages. But insurgency had already scaled across regions; Boko Haram had splintered, and the patience and capacity were thin. Gusau’s efforts lacked political depth and time. When his tenure ended in May 2015, so too did the hopes of seeing a decisive shift from reactive force to preventive security architecture.

Under subsequent ministers Mansur Mohammed Dan-Ali (2015–2019) and retired Major-General Bashir Salihi Magashi (2019–2023), the tendency again was toward kinetics, procurement, routine operations — heavy-handed responses to terror strikes, bandit raids, kidnappings. The Armed Forces regained some currency; there were operations, there were “victories,” and sometimes media reports of dislodged cells or rescued hostages. But the casualty was strategic consistency. The underlying problems: weak policing institutions, uncoordinated intelligence between state and federal agencies, porous borders, and a civilian security vacuum. Without credible law enforcement reforms, social rehabilitation and community engagement, cleared zones relapsed. Violence remained endemic.

When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu picked Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, a former two-term governor as Defence Minister in August 2023, many hoped that his executive political experience would at last shapeshift national security policy. But reality proved more unforgiving than expectation. By November 2025, Nigeria had witnessed mass kidnappings, schoolchildren abducted en masse, rural communities under siege, and public confidence crumbling. On November 26, President Tinubu declared a nationwide security emergency, ordering mass recruitment into police and army ranks and authorizing new deployments of forest guards to flush out terrorists and bandits from remote hideouts. The aim was to inject manpower; but as many analysts warned, manpower without structural reform is like pouring water into a leaking pot. On December 1, 2025, Badaru resigned reportedly on health grounds.

The very next day, on December 2, President Tinubu nominated retired General Christopher Gwabin Musa as Minister of Defence. Musa had served as Chief of Defence Staff from 2023 until October 2025, when he was relieved in a wide-ranging military shake-up. His record is impeccable: commissioned as Second Lieutenant in 1991 after graduating from the Nigerian Defence Academy, Musa rose steadily through command ranks, served in key operational theatres, including as Theatre Commander in counter-insurgency campaigns and won the Colin Powell Award for Soldiering in 2012.

This appointment represents more than a change of guard; it presents a crossroads. For generations, Nigeria’s Defence Ministry oscillated between procurement-focused bureaucracy and reactive operations. The missing link was always a coherent, nationwide internal security doctrine, one that recognises terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, communal wars and urban criminality as equal or greater threats than cross-border war. Musa may be the man with the credentials; but credentials do not automatically translate to success. For that, he will need more than a uniform, he will need vision, political courage, and structural reengineering.

First, intelligence in Nigeria has long been a patchwork of agencies: military intelligence, police Special Branch, state-level vigilante networks, local community informants, and often unofficial actors. Every Defence Minister since 1999 has inherited this fragmentation. Even when ministers like Aliyu Gusau explicitly prioritized intelligence reform, they lacked either the time, political backing, or institutional leverage to bind these threads into a functional national network. Under Musa, Nigeria must build a real Intelligence Fusion Centre, statutory in law, resourced, and empowered to gather, analyse, and share data across all security agencies. It should not be another office with flowery titles; it must be the beating heart of Nigeria’s security architecture.

Second, Nigeria’s policing and internal security apparatus remain dangerously under-developed. The police are overstretched or mis-deployed; conventional policing capacities are weak; law enforcement is uneven across states or non-existent in many rural areas. In effect, the military ends up policing civilians, a recipe for human rights violations, community alienation, and cycles of violence. Musa must use his credibility both as military man and now Defence Minister to push for statutory police reform, to support state-level policing initiatives, and to redefine roles: the military defends the country externally and responds to exceptional internal crises; the police and civil security agencies maintain daily law enforcement and community protection. That might require political negotiation with governors and lawmakers.

Third, Nigeria must stop treating security as a matter of fire-power and weapons. As urban kidnappings show, and as rural banditry and communal conflicts prove, contemporary insecurity thrives on mobility, networks, subversion, infiltration, and terror. The new minister should prioritise modern security tools: drones for surveillance, communication-intercept (COMINT and SIGINT) capacity, special forces trained in counter-terror, local informant networks, rapid reaction units — small, mobile, intelligence-driven. Big tank brigades and conventional formations have their place; but they are blunt instruments in a country where threats can strike schools at night and vanish into forests by dawn.

Even military brilliance alone will fail if it remains disconnected from society. Nigeria’s security problems are deeply structural: poverty, social dislocation, youth unemployment, weak institutions, poor governance, inter-communal crises, land conflicts, ethnic and religious fractures. Every military advance that does not come with social stabilization — resettlement of displaced persons, rebuilding of schools, reviving of farms and markets, psychosocial support, community reconciliation — simply displaces the problem. The new Defence Minister must insist that security operations be paired with civil-affairs initiatives: resettlement, restoration, rebuilding.

Finally, the Ministry must embrace transparency and result-oriented reporting. For too long, Nigerians have depended on headlines: “Bandits killed,” “Scores of terrorists neutralised,” “Villages liberated.” But those headlines rarely translate into lasting security. The public needs measurable outcomes: fewer kidnappings, fewer mass attacks, safer roads, resettled communities, functioning markets, schools reopened, return of displaced people.

General Musa steps into office at a critical moment: the presidency has just declared a nationwide security emergency; recruitment into police and army forces has been ordered; forest guards are to be deployed, and VIP-protection officers are to be redeployed to frontier duties. These are signals that the government finally acknowledges the scale of the crisis, but manpower without structure is no answer.

If Musa gets it right, this appointment could mark the beginning of a long overdue transformation. If he fails, the nation risks descending deeper into despair: more missing schoolchildren, more displaced families, more ghost towns.

Nigeria does not need another Defence Minister. What Nigeria needs is a Defence Minister who is also an architect of a new national security system: one that integrates intelligence, law enforcement, civil protection, social support, governance and accountability. The war to reclaim Nigeria’s peace is no longer just on the battlefield but in institutions, in policies, in communities, and in hearts.

Gen. Christopher Gwabin Musa (rtd) now carries the weight of that history. If he can convert his military credentials into strategic reforms, if he can lead with vision, then he may offer Nigeria more than hope: a path to security; a chance at peace.

Time to Defend Every Nigerian Life, by Boniface Ihiasota

Nigeria stands today at a moral and historical crossroads, one that demands clear-eyed reflection and courageous action. From the vantage point of the diaspora, with the benefit of distance yet the burden of deep emotional connection, it is impossible to ignore the painful realities unfolding across parts of the Middle Belt and the North. Communities that once lived in harmony now grapple with waves of violence often described with soft, almost technical language — “herder-farmer clashes,” “bandit attacks,” “reprisal killings.”

Behind these labels are fathers and mothers who can no longer return to their farms, children who sleep in fear, elders watching the erosion of traditions that once bound communities together, and families who have endured losses no words can fully capture. These are Nigerians — Christians, Muslims, farmers, herders, artisans, all deserving of dignity and safety.

This crisis is not simply a security failure. It is a moral test of our nationhood. In the diaspora, we encounter societies where public safety, community trust, and national cohesion are not abstract aspirations; they are supported by deliberate, well-funded systems. These systems are not perfect, but they offer models Nigeria can adapt in practical, culturally grounded ways.

And while the statistics on Nigeria’s challenges are sobering, they point not to government guilt, but to the urgent need for coordinated, transparent, data-driven reforms that protect vulnerable communities and rebuild public confidence.

Reports cited by global faith-monitoring organisations, humanitarian groups, and rights bodies present a troubling picture. One frequently referenced dataset in international discourse, including the 2024 World Watch List, places Nigeria among countries where Christians face severe risks, with figures running into the thousands for those reported killed in 2023 alone.

Parliamentary briefings abroad and humanitarian groups such as the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust have documented recurring attacks, widespread displacement, and systematic destruction of villages. Other organisations, such as Intersociety, also chronicle patterns of violence affecting both Christians and Muslims in rural regions. While some of these figures remain contested within Nigeria, they nevertheless reinforce the urgency of strengthening national protection systems and ensuring that every Nigerian, irrespective of faith or ethnicity, is afforded equal security, equal justice, and equal empathy.

From a diaspora viewpoint, what stands out is not just the scale of the violence but the preventable nature of many tragedies. Advanced countries facing communal tensions have invested in strong early-warning networks, multi-agency coordination mechanisms, and community-centred policing models.

These systems show measurable success by improving response times, reducing escalation, and fostering trust between citizens and security institutions. Nigeria can draw practical lessons from these approaches. Effective national coordination models, such as those used in the United States for crisis management, rely on unified command structures, common communication standards, and the integration of faith-based and community organisations into emergency planning.

A Nigerian adaptation of this model could create a national platform where security agencies, traditional rulers, faith leaders, and civil society jointly analyse threats, share intelligence, and mobilise rapid responses. Such a structure, rooted in Nigeria’s cultural realities but informed by global best practices, would save lives.

Equally important is community policing, not the informal, unregulated kind that fuels abuse or vigilantism, but structured, accountable, measurable partnership policing. Countries like the UK and Canada demonstrate that when local security actors operate with clear legal boundaries, training, and oversight, citizen trust and intelligence flow improve dramatically. Nigeria can replicate this by formally integrating vetted community groups and traditional institutions into local security frameworks under police supervision. This approach respects the local knowledge that rural communities possess while ensuring professional accountability.

Security, however, is only one dimension. The human cost of the violence like displacement, destroyed livelihoods, psychological trauma requires a level of social investment that advanced nations routinely prioritise.

International health bodies highlight that conflict exposure significantly heightens long-term mental health needs. Nigeria will require expanded trauma care, community counselling programs, and accessible psychosocial support delivered through primary healthcare and faith networks. Rebuilding homes, restoring farms, and providing tools and training are equally essential; these interventions not only restore dignity but also deepen trust in government.

Places of worship, too often targeted, need structured protection. Advanced countries have implemented national schemes that support security upgrades for mosques, churches, synagogues, and temples most at risk. Nigeria can create a similar framework in high-risk regions, providing basic infrastructure like lighting, reinforced entry points, and community safety training. Such measures demonstrate state commitment to protecting freedom of worship, a constitutional right and a moral obligation.

As the diaspora, we recognise the efforts the Nigerian government has already made in confronting insurgency and upgrading security architecture. But the next phase requires deliberate attention to vulnerable rural populations in flashpoint areas like Plateau, Benue, and Southern Kaduna. These regions are not peripheral; they are central to Nigeria’s food security, interfaith cohesion, and national stability. Protecting them is both a justice imperative and a strategic necessity.

The path forward must be one of collaboration, not division. Churches and mosques must champion narratives of unity. Civil society must monitor data transparently. Media must avoid sensationalism and focus on verified information. Security agencies must be commended when they act swiftly and fairly, and held accountable when they fall short. Government must demonstrate openness, empathy, and partnership. And the diaspora must continue to contribute technical expertise, advocacy, and resources.

Nigeria has survived darker moments and emerged stronger. With decisive leadership, evidence-based reforms, and a renewed commitment to the sanctity of every Nigerian life, this tragedy can be transformed into an opportunity for national rebirth. The time for blame is over. What Nigeria needs now is compassion anchored in facts, courage backed by action, and collaboration driven by a shared belief that every Nigerian deserves to live and worship without fear.

As G20 Moves On Without America, by Alabidun Shuaib AbdulRahman 

When the G20 summit convened this November in Johannesburg, the first time the gathering has ever been held on African soil, one seat was starkly empty. The world’s largest economy, the Donald J. Trump-led United States, simply refused to attend. No president, no senior envoy, not even a delegation. The absence was louder than any diplomatic communiqué, a void that hung over the proceedings like an unspoken challenge.

For weeks before the summit, Trump had telegraphed the boycott. He announced that no U.S. official would participate, calling it “a total disgrace” that the gathering was being hosted in South Africa. He justified the walkout with allegations that Pretoria was enabling abuses against its white-minority Afrikaner community and presiding over land seizures and a supposed “white genocide”—claims widely rejected within South Africa and dismissed by many global observers. Still, he held to his stance, ensuring that the United States would be missing from the table it once dominated.

Yet the empty chair did not halt the summit. Far from it. When the doors closed and the work began, more than forty countries and organisations had confirmed their participation. According to South Africa’s foreign-affairs minister, a total of forty-two delegations were registered: twenty G20 member states (excluding the U.S.), sixteen invited guest nations, and six representing regional economic blocs across Africa, the Caribbean and East Asia. It was one of the most diverse gatherings in the forum’s history.

Of the twenty G20 member states, a clear majority sent their heads of state or government. Four countries opted for high-level substitutes: Russia, Mexico and Argentina sent their foreign ministers or equivalents, while China was represented by its Premier rather than President Xi Jinping. Apart from these deviations and the complete American boycott, the turnout remained strong. At least sixteen G20 countries had their top leadership present, a level consistent with or even above several previous summits.

The question, then, is what this moment signifies—for the G20, for Africa’s place in global governance, and for a world increasingly shaped by fractured geopolitics.

The symbolic dimension is impossible to ignore. For decades the United States has been the gravitational centre of global economic coordination, the anchor whose participation guaranteed that G20 pronouncements could be translated into global action. Without Washington in the room, many of the traditional levers of influence like financial stability mechanisms, trade dynamics, institutional power felt looser and less predictable. The absence introduced doubt: could the G20 still claim to be the premier platform for steering the global economy if its most powerful member stayed away? Some analysts wondered whether the forum’s future was in jeopardy.

Yet paradoxically, the boycott created breathing space. Instead of collapsing under the weight of American non-participation, the summit moved forward with surprising cohesion. Leaders adopted a 122-point declaration issued unusually on the summit’s opening day that centred on climate action, debt sustainability, energy transition and global inequality. These were not peripheral concerns but core priorities, particularly for developing economies. And critically, they reflected Africa’s agenda far more directly than in past years.

For Africa, a continent long relegated to the fringes of global decision-making, the Johannesburg summit brought a subtle but significant shift. It marked a moment where issues that have shaped African suffering and aspiration, unsustainable debt, climate vulnerability, access to green energy, development finance were not treated as charity cases or footnotes but as global imperatives. South Africa’s leadership in shaping the agenda was evident: it shepherded conversations that placed the continent not as a crisis zone but as a partner with agency.

Even the ending of the summit carried symbolism. The traditional handover of the G20 presidency, typically marked by the passing of a wooden gavel from one host to the next, did not unfold in its usual choreography. President Cyril Ramaphosa brought the meeting to a close with a strike of the gavel, but there was no American official to step forward and receive the ceremonial baton. The moment underscored the deeper reality: the world’s most powerful nation had chosen absence in a year when Africa chose presence.

Naturally, this raised concerns. If powerful states begin treating multilateral forums as optional, depending on domestic politics or ideological sentiments, the foundations of global governance weaken. The G20 has played central roles in navigating financial crises, stabilising commodity markets, coordinating pandemic responses and mobilizing climate finance. A precedent where a superpower boycotts the summit could encourage similar behaviour by others in future moments of crisis. The potential ripple effects on global trust, crisis management and economic coordination are worrying.

But Johannesburg also demonstrated that the G20 is more adaptable than its critics assume. Instead of paralysis, the summit produced consensus. Instead of division, it surfaced shared interests. And instead of waiting for the United States to validate decisions, countries across continents showed that cooperation was still possible, even necessary, without America’s guiding hand.

For many African nations, this sense of possibility was palpable. For years, they have been the subjects of global policies drafted in distant capitals. In Johannesburg, they felt more like contributors. The declaration reflected structural concerns that matter from Lagos to Nairobi: access to concessional finance, green industrialization, fair energy transition pathways, investment in resilience rather than repeated cycles of vulnerability. These were not afterthoughts but central pillars.

Still, optimism should remain grounded. Declarations alone do not build roads, transition energy grids or relieve debt burdens. They do not shift the voting power held by wealthy nations in global financial institutions. And they do not erase the influence the United States wields over the IMF, World Bank and other structures that control the flow of global capital. Even in absence, Washington’s shadow is long.

At the same time, the boycott raises uncomfortable questions about the future. If summits can be walked away from because of domestic political narratives or ideological disagreements, the global architecture becomes more fragile. Future crises, whether debt shocks, pandemics, food shortages or climate-induced disasters require collaboration and not boycotts. A forum that can be abandoned sets troubling precedents.

Yet this moment may also become a hinge in history. Not because it solves everything, but because it marks a shift in rhythm. It shows the system bending, under pressure, toward greater inclusion. It proves that Africa can host, convene and even lead. More than nineteen members signed the declaration; voices from the Global South resonated with unusual clarity. And for once, those who are often asked to wait for the powerful to decide had already begun making decisions of their own.

For Nigeria, the implications are profound. The global conversation is moving toward issues that directly affect its development path: debt restructuring, climate resilience, green industrial transformation, food security and transparent governance. Nigeria must engage with these shifts deliberately. Declarations will mean little if national policy fails to align with them. The country needs bold investments in climate adaptation, expanded support for agriculture and manufacturing, improved fiscal management and stronger accountability mechanisms. Its diaspora and civil society have roles to play as watchdogs, advocates and bridges linking global promises to local action.

The United States will remain central in global affairs. Its currency, markets and institutional power ensure that. But the Johannesburg summit demonstrated something important: relevance in the G20 is no longer solely measured by presence. Sometimes absence reshapes the conversation more than participation. The empty chair at Johannesburg was not just a diplomatic symbol; it became a catalyst for rethinking old assumptions.

The challenge now is to ensure that the space created by that absence is not wasted. The real measure of success will lie in implementation in whether climate justice initiatives become real funding pipelines, whether debt deals become fairer, whether green energy investments materialise, and whether global decisions begin to reflect the needs of people from Kenya to Ghana, rather than only those in United States or Germany. It will lie in whether African leaders rise to the occasion, using the moment to insist on equity rather than settling for symbolism.

The world watched as the G20 pressed on, limping perhaps, but moving. And Africa did more than host; it spoke, it influenced, it guided. If Nigeria and the rest of the continent seize the momentum, the reverberation of that gavel strike in Johannesburg could echo not only through global institutions but through local communities seeking fairness and development.

In the end, the empty seat left behind by the United States did not define the summit. The G20 may not have needed America to agree on a declaration in 2025. But building a future that transcends absence will require a different kind of presence.

If Africa answers that call, history may yet record that the empty chair marked not a failure, but the beginning of something new.

Alabidun is a media practitioner and can be reached via alabidungoldenson@gmail.com