Politicians are exploiting insecurity for political gains – Ex-CDS Lucky Irabor

Former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Lucky Irabor (retd.), has revealed that some politicians are taking advantage of Nigeria’s insecurity — and in some cases actively fuelling it — to advance their political interests.

Irabor made the disclosure during an interview on Channels Television on Monday, where he offered a deep analysis of the multiple layers of criminality driving violence across the country. He stressed that Nigeria’s security challenges are far too complex to be blamed on a single factor, noting that political interference remains one of the least-discussed but most damaging contributors.

His remarks come less than 24 hours after presidential aide Daniel Bwala announced that the Federal Government was preparing to publicly reveal the identities of individuals allegedly financing terrorism.

Speaking on the complexity of Nigeria’s security landscape, Irabor cautioned against sweeping generalisations that place all violent incidents under one categorisation. According to him, the country faces multiple forms of security threats — ideological, criminal, political and economic — that operate simultaneously. He said: “You can’t hold people for their views, but the reality is that our issues in terms of security challenges are multifaceted. “Just as we have terrorists who have an ideology, we equally have those who are bent on targeting Christians, and there are also those who are targeting communities, desiring to displace communities and wanting to stay in those communities to be able to have a voice.” He explained that various violent actors, including terrorists, bandits, community displacers and economic criminals, operate with different motives, making the crisis difficult to simplify. “If you lump the entire thing into one, the analysis would be wrong,” he said. Addressing claims that insecurity is purely political, the former defence chief acknowledged that while political motives exist, they do not account for all incidents. “Those who say it is political, that would also be lumping all the issues to say all other issues do not matter — that’s also not correct,” he noted.

While admiting that some political figures have weaponised insecurity for personal gain, the former CDS said: “That does not mean some politicians have not taken advantage of the insecurity to perhaps gain some sort of leverage; to give the impression that they can do better….“Others perhaps want to score a point that there’s poor governance; they could also instigate crisis in one way or the other.”