ARMED GROUPS AND NIGERIA'S INTERNAL SECURITY CHALLENGES: ISSUES, TRENDS AND THE WAY OUT
Nigeria's internal security environment deteriorated remarkably in 2025 to early 2026, with multiple armed non-state actors—jihadist insurgents (Boko Haram/Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad and Islamic State West Africa Province), Northwest criminal bandit networks, Middle Belt farmer-herder militias, and Southeast separatist formations including the Eastern Security Network and “unknown gunmen”. Banditry emerged as the single deadliest category, while ISWAP exhibited tactical resurgence through drone strikes, night-vision raids, and repeated overruns of military forward operating bases. Hybrid bandit-jihadist alignments (notably Lakurawa) and persistent separatist enforcement in the Southeast further entrenched ungoverned spaces. Drawing on triangulated data from Nextier Nigeria Violent Conflicts Database (2020–2025), ACLED (through March 2026), the Global Terrorism Index 2025, Amnesty International (2025), International Crisis Group, and SBM Intelligence, this article examines the historical genesis, spatial-temporal evolution, operational interconnections, and multi-dimensional impacts of these groups from 2020 to early 2026. Employing an integrated theoretical framework that combines state fragility, environmental security, rational choice, hybrid warfare, and elite instrumentalization perspectives, the analysis identifies weak governance, climate-induced resource stress, small-arms proliferation, elite complicity, and self-financing ransom economies as the principal sustaining drivers. The article concludes with a phased, multi-pillar resolution strategy informed by comparative lessons from Colombia (FARC peace process), Sri Lanka (post-LTTE stabilization), and the Lake Chad Basin (Multinational Joint Task Force). Without coordinated, high-intensity reforms across security, governance, socio-economic, legal-institutional, and regional domains, Nigeria faces heightened risk of territorial fragmentation and cross-border contagion by the 2027 electoral cycle.
Keywords: armed non-state actors, banditry, ISWAP, farmer-herder conflict, separatist violence, hybrid threats, state fragility, climate-security nexus, ransom economy, Nigeria