Capacity Building of the Nigerian Armed Forces and Security Challenges

July 2019 marks the eleventh year since the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria gained international recognition. A series of riots which lasted between 25th July and 30th July 2009 and smeared four North eastern Nigerian states Bauchi, Kano, Yobe and Borno, sequel to the death of Mohammed Yusuf, metamorphosed into a gangrenous cancer eating deep into the social order and security of Nigeria. This conflict is believed to have claimed over one hundred thousand lives and led to the displacement of over 2.3 million people from their homes in the northern eastern region of Nigeria, and other nations on the Lake Chad Basin ' Chad, Cameroon, and Niger. Even though the Nigerian government claims that it has technically defeated the insurgent group with remarkable successes in military raids which reduced the territorial control of the terrorist group in 2015 2016, Boko Haram still persists and has proven to be adaptive in its tactics and strategies. Further compounding the protracted nature of the crisis are the threats emanating from the existence of other violent groups like the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB , the Niger Delta Avengers NDA and the Fulani herdsmen. Likewise, there are allegations against the Nigerian military of its human rights abuses and law of armed conflicts violations by different international organizations like Amnesty International AI . Most of these issues have been tied to poor training and mentorship of the military to confront the current insecurity issues of the nation. Even though Nigeria is home to a variety of military training schools and camps, there are still loopholes in the training of the soldiers. This is because these military training schools are run by mentors trained in conventional armed battles and not asymmetrical warfare as the different insurgent groups tend to adopt guerrilla warfare strategies in their approach. Consequently, the construction of a training school primarily focused on unconventional warfare and the involvement in properly directed trainings and courses in counter terrorism so as to deal with non conventional forces and internal insurrections is a must for the Nigerian Armed Force if warding off unprecedented attacks from insurgents groups is to be ensured. Otu Offiong Duke "Capacity Building of the Nigerian Armed Forces and Security Challenges" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-1 , December 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd29527.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/humanities-and-the-arts/political-science/29527/capacity-building-of-the-nigerian-armed-forces-and-security-challenges/otu-offiong-duke