The urgency that President Tinubu’s nationwide security emergency declaration should have triggered

On December 1, 2025, after about 5 days that President Bola Tinubu declared a national emergency on security in Nigeria, a national daily had as its front-page story, “Fresh Abductions, Killings Test Tinubu’s Security Emergency, Heighten Anxiety”, and another had “Fear Grips Nigeria as Bandit Attacks, Kidnappings Surge”. And some broadcast platforms had their anchors asking, “Is the government putting up appearances?” These followed a series of brazen attacks by insurgents across the country in their mockery of the president’s declaration of a nationwide security emergency.

“However, the intent of the measure is a fundamental, high-stakes governance shift, prioritising the safety of the general public over the comfort of the elite—a clear signal of executive resolve.”

Globally, heads of state facing security failures such as intelligence lapses, invasions, or insurgencies have declared states of emergency, imposed martial law, or launched military operations. These actions vary by regime type, with democracies emphasising proportionality and judicial oversight, while autocracies use them for consolidation. A commonality to these declarations is the urgency principle, which includes rapid executive orders suspending civil liberties, deploying troops domestically, or seeking international alliances, all aimed at immediately containing and addressing the issues that led to the declaration and at restoring peace and security.

On November 26, 2025, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, concerned by the deteriorating security situation in Nigeria, announced a nationwide security emergency, the first time a Nigerian head of state would do so nationwide. The previous six times when heads of state declared states of emergency in security, with the first being in 1962, were mostly at state or regional levels. In the declaration, President Tinubu noted, “Those who want to test our resolve should never mistake our restraint for weakness.

This administration has the courage and determination to keep the country safe and ensure our citizens live in peace.” ………. “My fellow Nigerians, this is a national emergency, and we are responding by deploying more boots on the ground, especially in security-challenged areas. The times require all hands on deck. As Nigerians, we should all get involved in securing our nation.”

President Tinubu’s declaration was interpreted by some as a definitive response to the debilitating insecurity in the country, while others decried its ambiguity and lack of urgency.

In an actual sense, the President’s action does not meet the urgency requirement when measured against the criteria for emergencies associated with global standards for similar declarations. Rather, it is something more intricate that is a hybrid of political will and advocacy for futuristic security sector reform, which, if properly used, can engender the urgency of the moment to accelerate deep, politically challenging structural reforms but does not address the immediate challenges.

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For example, the history of the United States is replete with periods when presidents invoked states of emergency. In each of these instances, the invocation unlocked over 130 statutory powers, such as reallocating funds, imposing sanctions, or mobilising resources, often without immediate congressional approval. Since 1976, over 90 such declarations have been made, with about 40 active as of 2025. There are also similar examples of state of emergency declarations in security in several countries, such as in India when Narendra Modi, in the aftermath of the 2019 Pulwama attack that involved suicide bombing by Pakistan-based militants, who killed at least 40 Indian soldiers, exposing border intelligence gaps, declared a “national emergency” in Jammu & Kashmir, revoked Article 370 (autonomy status), imposed lockdown, deployed additional troops, and conducted airstrikes on Pakistan.

In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, following a 2016 failed military coup amid purges that exposed factional divides in the armed forces, declared a state of emergency for two years, suspended 160,000 civil servants, and arrested 50,000+ suspects, after which he rewrote the constitution for an executive presidency.

In France, Emmanuel Macron, in the 2015 terrorism wave when the Paris attacks revealed immigration-security vetting failures and subsequent threats, declared a national emergency, which he extended multiple times, expanded surveillance laws, deployed 10,000 troops via Operation Sentinelle, and restricted public gatherings.

In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, following the 2017 Marawi Siege when ISIS-affiliated militants overran the city, highlighting urban defence lapses, declared martial law in Mindanao, suspended habeas corpus, empowered military courts, and launched “all-out war” with airstrikes and ground operations.

In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, following the 2022 Brasília Riots, the post-election invasion of government buildings that echoed the U.S. Capitol riot, exposing police failures, declared a state of defence in what he termed a short-term emergency and deployed the army for internal security and investigated rioters under anti-terror laws.

Back in Nigeria, as already stated, in its true sense the declaration of emergency in security by President Tinubu bears strategic ambiguity and does not match the urgency required to contain and reverse the crescendo of insecurity metrics in the country. It is a declaration of executive will, derived from the President’s broad authority as Commander-in-Chief (Section 130(2)), reinforced by Section 5(1)(a), to marshal and direct all federal security agencies, including the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the DSS, to address a crisis threatening public safety and order (Section 14(2)(b)), but it deliberately avoids the restrictive legal framework of a formal State of Emergency under Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution.

An analysis of President Tinubu’s emergency measures shows at least two genuine, immediate actions that, if properly deployed, will satisfy the criteria of direct operational impact but not of speed.

First, the directive for the immediate withdrawal of police officers from Very Important Person (VIP) protection duties. This move is a non-standard operational decision designed to instantly inject up to an estimated 100,000 trained personnel back into core policing duties. Already the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, on Thursday, November 27, 2025, indicated that 11,566 of these personnel had been recalled. This is despite a pushback by several VIPs who complained that they will be vulnerable if the police protective officers are pulled out. The question of whether police personnel on protective duties at locations and organisations will also be withdrawn remains unanswered. However, the intent of the measure is a fundamental, high-stakes governance shift, prioritising the safety of the general public over the comfort of the elite—a clear signal of executive resolve.

Second, the rapid deployment of existing, trained Department of State Services (DSS) forest guards to flush out terrorists and bandits from criminal safe havens. It is unclear how many Nigeria Forest Security Service (NFSS) operatives have been recruited and trained so far, but if their number (the last publicly available figure is 24,000 as of August 2025) is substantial and if they are properly kitted and equipped and the right pathways for tactical and operational synergy with other security ministries, departments and agencies are achieved, these forces can reduce the use of our forest locations as havens by these criminal groups.

Beyond these immediate operational measures, the declaration transitions into a Security Sector Reform Agenda whose core policies are long-term structural commitments, spanning years, not weeks.

The most significant structural measure is the massive police recruitment drive. The President authorised an additional 20,000 recruits, bringing the total expedited intake to 50,000 officers. While essential for addressing Nigeria’s severe police manpower deficit (the NPF had about 371,800 personnel as of 2021), this is fundamentally a capacity-building exercise. The rigorous process of screening, training, and full deployment is realistically projected to take 1 to 3 years. It is a policy designed to fulfil the constitutional mandate for a single police force (Section 214(1)), but its impact on the immediate security situation is minimal.

This acceleration introduces significant execution risks that are primarily fiscal and qualitative. Firstly, the capacity mismatch: processing 50,000 recruits requires an exponential upgrade to training infrastructure.

To fast-track deployment, the executive authorised the temporary use of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camps as training depots. The utilisation of facilities not designed for paramilitary training risks producing poorly prepared, under-socialised officers who miss the necessary structured six-to-nine months of instruction. This “crash retraining” mentality, also applied to the redeployed VIP officers, jeopardises the long-term goal of professionalisation, potentially replacing one security problem with another: a poorly trained, larger force.

Secondly, the perennial issue of funding opacity looms large. While the Nigeria Police Trust Fund (NPTF) presented its 2025 budget proposal as a “blueprint for safer communities”, the specific, granular allocations required for the massive infrastructure upgrades and sustained recurrent costs of the 50,000 recruitment drive remain undisclosed. Sustaining this force will require years of transparent, ring-fenced fiscal commitment. Should the funding stall, the declaration risks creating a large cohort of partially trained, poorly equipped personnel, transforming a promising commitment into a costly fiscal failure.

The most profound, non-emergency element is the President’s instruction for the National Assembly to review laws and allow states to establish their own police forces. This directive directly confronts Section 214(1) of the Constitution, which establishes a unitary federal police force.

By using the gravity of the security crisis, the administration has successfully moved the contentious issue of state police from the realm of political debate to that of national security necessity. This application of executive urgency compels the National Assembly to allocate resources to expedite the process of constitutional amendment. The emergency label provides the political cover needed to overcome the legislative inertia that has historically stalled such federal restructuring.

Additionally, the policy to promote modern ranching to resolve herder-farmer clashes, while vital for socio-economic stability, has also been clarified by the Ministry of Livestock as a gradual, well-structured transition. It involves utilising and upgrading Nigeria’s 273 gazetted grazing reserves over a multi-year timeline.

Framing this deliberate, long-term socio-economic policy under an “emergency” banner risks generating unrealistic public expectations for instant peace, potentially mischaracterising a sound policy as a failure if conflicts persist in the short term.

Another clear long-term and hugely controversial measure is the directive, born from the tragic pattern of mass school abductions, which was a specific warning to state governments against establishing boarding schools in remote and vulnerable areas.

President Tinubu emphasised that student safety must be prioritised over expansion or convenience, urging states to reassess existing school locations and ensure adequate security for all boarding facilities.

Nigerians in communities across the 6 geopolitical zones, more so in North Central, North East and North West, who even after the November 26, 2025, declaration are being attacked, with some killed and others abducted, in raids by non-state armed groups that continue to challenge the supremacy of the use of force by the state, are still waiting for immediate measures that will increase their protection, and the urgency increases by the minute.

Some urgent measures that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu may take to shore up support for the seriousness in reversing the current debilitated state of security in Nigeria will include a cabinet reshuffle and the declaration of war on banditry and terrorism, followed by clear time-bound performance measurement standards for the security ministries, departments and agencies. To achieve national consensus on these issues, he should convene an expanded National Security Council, where the prerogatives for achieving the objectives of an immediate domination of the security space to contain the spiralling violence will be discussed, pathways for federal and subnational implementation agreed upon, and clear timelines using monitoring and evaluation tools determined.

Kabir Adamu is the Managing Director of Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited.

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