A security analyst at the University of Aberdeen, Onyedikachi Madueke, has warned that Nigeria’s worsening insecurity cannot be resolved through airpower alone.
He cautioned that while airstrikes may deliver short-term tactical gains, they risk triggering longer-term strategic setbacks if not embedded in a broader, people-centred security strategy.
Reacting to recent airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) targets in Sokoto State, Madueke said military force from the air may degrade militant capabilities temporarily, but is insufficient to address the complex drivers of violence across Nigeria.
“Nigeria’s insecurity will not be resolved through airpower alone,” Madueke stated in an article published yesterday by The Guardian of London.
He stressed that “airstrikes may yield short-term tactical gains, but they risk generating longer-term strategic setbacks.”
He noted that public reaction to the Sokoto airstrikes has been mixed.
While the justification for the strikes has been widely questioned, the operation itself has been broadly welcomed across religious, ethnic and social divides.
According to him, the strikes were framed in some quarters as a response to alleged genocidal attacks on Christians.
However, Nigerian authorities, he said, have consistently rejected this narrative, maintaining that armed groups do not target victims based on religion and that Christians and Muslims largely coexist peacefully.
Madueke noted that the framing itself has complicated the public understanding of the operation.
Sokoto, he explained, is the spiritual heartland of Islam in Nigeria, and armed violence in the area has disproportionately affected Muslim communities rather than Christians.
“The geographic and operational focus of the strikes complicates the ‘Christian genocide’ framing,” he said.
He added that attacks against Christian farmers are more prevalent in north-central states such as Benue and Plateau, where violence is often linked to armed herder militias rather than jihadist groups.
He noted that the strikes targeted IS elements, not herder militias, raising questions about whether external actors fully grasp the local dynamics of violence in Nigeria’s different regions.
He said, despite early concerns shaped by memories of prolonged US military interventions in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, the Sokoto operation eased public anxiety because of its limited scope.
Insecurity: Why are we defeated?
“The operation was a targeted precision strike, not a prolonged intervention,” Madueke observed.
According to Madueke, many Nigerians were prepared to accept almost any intervention that promised immediate relief as the strikes came at a time of widespread public fatigue with insecurity caused by insurgency, terrorism, banditry and communal violence.
The analyst said Nigeria’s security agencies are increasingly overstretched as terrorist networks become more interconnected across the Sahel and West Africa.
He pointed to persistent corruption, inadequate training and chronic equipment shortages as factors undermining counterinsurgency efforts.
“In some theatres, groups such as Boko Haram and its splinter factions now wield more sophisticated weaponry than state forces,” he said.
The federal government has confirmed that it endorsed the Sokoto operation.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar acknowledged that Nigeria provided intelligence support and remained in communication with U.S. forces until minutes before the strikes were executed.
However, Madueke warned that how such interventions are framed matters as much as the strikes themselves.
He cautioned that presenting the operation as a defence of persecuted Christians could strengthen extremist propaganda.
“Framing the intervention in religious terms risks reinforcing narratives of foreign ‘crusader’ aggression,” he said, noting that groups such as Isis-Sahel and emerging factions like Lakurawa “thrive on such symbolism,” which can attract funding, recruits and external support.
According to the analyst, a durable solution to Nigeria’s insecurity lies not in firepower but in tackling the structural drivers of violence.
“The sustainable path to peace lies in starving violence of its fuel,” Madueke said, pointing to deep socioeconomic inequality, desertification and climate stress, weak state presence in rural communities, porous borders and fragile security institutions.
He highlighted Sokoto’s high number of out-of-school children as a warning sign, arguing that strengthening state capacity to manage grievances, regulate competition over land and resources, and counter extremism remains Nigeria’s only viable long-term option.
“Military action can buy time, but only governance, development and institutional reform can buy peace,” he said.
Credit: thenationonlineng.net
