Opinion: Nigeria’s Permanent Emergency – Abdul Mahmud

By Abdul Mahmud

Our country has become accustomed to almost anything, from food scarcity and high food prices to inflation. Power outages no longer provoke outrages as generators form colonies in neighbourhoods. Violence too has settled into our public life with frightening ease. Our country has arrived at a point where insecurity no longer appears as a rupture in national life, and the language of permanent emergency has become the language of governance. Governments at all levels now speak through the vocabulary of threat, deployment, clearance operations, tactical responses, and extraordinary measures. Public conversations around banditry, insurgency, kidnapping, communal violence, and oil theft have settled into an insouciant cycle of repetition. Governors journey to Abuja in search of federal intervention for crises localised in their origin within their own states, while citizens increasingly encounter the presence of government through checkpoints and armed patrols rather than through functioning schools, hospitals, and courts. The military now extends itself deep into civilian life. Soldiers supervise highways, guard public facilities, patrol cities, and intervene in conflicts that once belonged to civil authorities. In several states, soldiers serve as the most visible representatives of the Nigerian state.

Welcome to Nigeria’s permanent emergency.

The present state of affairs did not occur overnight; it emerged through years of unresolved crises and governance decay. Many Nigerians accepted this development because the scale of insecurity generated genuine fear. Entire communities in parts of the North West have endured mass abductions and violent raids. Rural farming populations across several states confront armed groups with little confidence that local policing can protect them. Terror attacks in the North East transformed military deployment into a permanent condition rather than a temporary response. Oil-producing areas continue to attract heavy security operations linked to economic interests. In the South East, tensions around separatist agitations have produced recurring confrontations between state forces and civilians. The Southwest, where a teacher and his pupils were abducted and the teacher later beheaded, has itself drifted into a seemingly permanent state of emergency. Each crisis created pressure for immediate action. Civilian authorities increasingly relied on military instruments because they offered visible demonstrations of state capacity.

A deeper consequence lies from all of this.

Exceptional measures have slowly altered the relationship between citizens and the state. Nigerians now encounter military authority in ordinary civic spaces with little debate about the long-term implications. A generation is growning up under continuous security operations across various parts of the federation, and the continuing alteration of constitutional register on civil governance. The danger here is that a country under permanent emergency begins to lower its expectations of accountability. Security concerns become ready explanations for secrecy and aggressive policing. Public officials invoke instability whenever criticisms emerge. Questions about governance are reframed as threats to national unity or morale. What else explains Bayo Onanuga’s recent quibbles over the Very Dark Man’s criticism of President Tinubu than this?

This atmosphere affects public psychology. Citizens living under prolonged insecurity often develop a desperate appetite for forceful leadership. Patience for democratic procedures declines when people fear for their safety. Calls for due process sound Greek to communities confronting daily violence. Political language then shifts toward command and control. Civil liberties come to appear negotiable during periods of uncertainty. Our country is already showing signs of this transition. Security agencies frequently operate without transparent public scrutiny, presenting a troubling case because the emergency itself no longer appears temporary.

This condition carries political implications beyond security policy.

A country governed through permanent emergency gradually weakens civilian institutions that require patience, transparency, and routine governance discipline. Civil agencies lose initiative when military responses dominate public problem-solving. Local governance suffers because political leaders begin to expect federal security interventions rather than develop durable local capacities. Public trust declines when every crisis receives the same response despite limited improvement in outcomes.

Nigeria’s political class often treats insecurity as a permanent opportunity to suppress liberties rather than a reality demanding deeper institutional reforms. Genuine policing reforms remain absent. Intelligence coordination receives public attention after major attacks rather than through sustained restructuring. Conversations about local policing continue to encounter political hesitation despite the limitations of centralised security management in a vast federation, while the political class worry little about the moral challenges our country faces. Citizens exposed to endless violence risk becoming emotionally numb. Tragedies that once commanded national mourning now disappear quickly from public consciousness. Casualty figures circulate for a day before another crisis replaces them. Families bury victims while official statements promise investigations and renewed operations.

Democracy depends partly on civic sensitivity. Citizens must retain the capacity to question power, defend rights, and insist on accountability even during difficult periods. Fear weakens those instincts. Governments rarely surrender expanded authority voluntarily after crises subside. History across many countries shows how emergency powers can outlive the emergencies that produced them. Our country, therefore, confronts itself with a serious political choice. Security remains necessary for any stable nation-state. Citizens deserve protection from violence and disorder. Armed groups cannot be romanticised or tolerated. The state possesses the legitimate duty to defend lives and territory. Military force will continue to play an important role in confronting serious threats.

A democratic state, however, cannot organise itself permanently around emergency illogic. Our country’s future depends partly on whether it can restore the distinction between emergency response and ordinary governance. A republic cannot remain psychologically mobilised forever. Citizens eventually lose confidence in institutions that speak the language of crisis year after year without visible resolution. The greatest risk facing our country may not be insecurity alone. The greater danger lies in becoming so accustomed to emergency that democratic erosion begins to appear normal.