Is Nigeria more secure than in 2014? A look at Buhari’s farewell speech and available data
In a 15-minute farewell speech, outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari, in his final address to Nigerians, took the time to enumerate his eight years of accomplishments as Nigeria’s 15th President.
“I address you today in my last assignment as a democratically elected President of our great and well-endowed nation, with a deep sense of gratitude to God, a great deal of appreciation to the Nigerian people, and a modest sense of fulfillment,” Buhari said in a nationwide broadcast on Sunday, May 28, 2023.
Buhari, a former army general, in 2014, capitalized on the prevailing attacks by Boko Haram terrorists to campaign on insecurity and assure Nigerians that the country would be safe and secure during his tenure.
On several occasions, Buhari insisted that he was leaving Nigeria better than he found it in 2015. Regarding insecurity, the outgoing President stated during his farewell address that significant efforts had been made to reduce incidences of banditry and terrorism in the country.
“Our battle to ensure that all Nigerians live in a safe and secure environment has achieved considerable results. As I complete my term in office, we have been able to reduce the incidences of banditry, terrorism, armed robbery, and other criminal activities considerably,” he said.
However, to the family of Dr. Chinelo Megafu, whose life and promising career were cut short by terrorists in an attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train on March 28, 2022, and to the friends and families of over 60,000 Nigerians who lost their loved ones between 2015 and 2023 due to insecurity, Nigeria is not more secure than it was eight years ago.
In the year leading up to Nigeria’s general elections in 2015, the country experienced a significant surge in terrorism. The Boko Haram sect, which emerged in 2009, carried out bombings on churches and mosques, and by 2014, they even managed to occupy territories in Nigeria comparable in size to Belgium. While it appears that the activities of Boko Haram have dwindled over the past eight years, with the death of Abubakar Shekau, the sect leader, in 2021, Nigeria has witnessed the emergence of other terror groups, such as bandits in the Northwest and Unknown Gun Men in the Southeast.
According to the Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Africa program, the period from 2015 to 2023 witnessed a staggering 63,111 deaths due to insecurity, compared to 34,972 deaths between 2011 and Buhari assuming power in 2015. This translates to an average of 33 deaths per day during Buhari’s tenure, compared to 24 deaths per day during Jonathan’s regime.
During President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure, schools became increasingly unsafe as bandits began to kidnap school children for ransom. In contrast to the single school abduction incident in 2014, famously known as the Chibok Girls kidnapping, Nigeria has experienced over eight school abductions under Buhari’s presidency. On February 19, 2018, more than 100 schoolgirls between the ages of 11 and 19 were kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist group from the Government Girls’ Science and Technical College (GGSTC) in Dapchi, Yobe State. Five schoolgirls died on the day of the abduction, and one girl named Leah Sharibu remains missing five years later.
Many parts of the country have become unsafe for living and travel. Even correctional centers were not spared from the wave of insecurity. Between 2020 and 2021, over 5,000 inmates escaped from Nigeria’s correctional centers. Over the past eight years, from incidents like the Kuje Prison attack to the Edo jailbreak, the country has witnessed more than 20 attacks, exacerbating the level of insecurity.
Insecurity has also impacted not only lives but also properties and possessions. In the North Central region, millions of people have been displaced due to the escalation of farmer-herder clashes, which residents in Benue State attribute to the period from 2015. In April, a month after Nigeria’s Presidential election, communities in Benue State, known as the nation’s food basket, came under attack by suspected herdsmen in Umogidi and Igbobi communities, Otukpo and Apa LGA of the State, resulting in the death of over 40 people.
In the once-peaceful Southwest, the memory of the Owo massacre on Sunday, June 5, 2022, will continue to haunt families who lost their loved ones in the mass shooting at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Owaluwa, in Owo local government area of Ondo State. Approximately 40 people were killed, and several others sustained various degrees of injuries. In the Southeast, groups like the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Eastern Security Network (ESN), formed by the incarcerated Nnamdi Kanu, have been accused of causing the deaths of over 1,000 people in the region since the beginning of 2021.
As President Muhammadu Buhari hands over the baton of leadership to Bola Tinubu on Monday, May 29, 2023, there is a prevailing sentiment among many Nigerians that his promise to secure and unite the country remains unfulfilled.
