The Right to Self-Preservation: Rethinking Community Defense in a National Security Crisis

By Joseph Lengmang Ph.D

I read a piece of news few days ago, where the United States Department of State ordered the departure of non-emergency government personnel and their families from its embassy in Abuja, citing worsening security situation across Nigeria.

The State Department warned their citizens against travelling to 23 states in Nigeria of which Plateau, Borno, Kwara and three other states fall under the “Do Not Travel” list for reasons ranging from armed banditry, terrorism, kidnapping and other violent crimes.

I believe not all of us are utterly surprised by this news. Fact is, the scale of our security crisis in Nigeria is deeply alarming.

Last week, Boko haram killed a Brigadier General and some of his fine officers and men in Borno state. In Plateau State, coordinated attacks have wiped out entire villages across at least four LGAs. In one of such incidents in Bokkos LGA, one single family lost seven of its members to terrorists.

The last four weeks alone saw no less than 130 lives cut down through a series of coordinated attacks across five local government areas including the Angwan Rukuba incident that claimed over 40 lives.

Similarly, Benue's fertile agricultural lands have turned into killing fields by a hit-and-run group of Fulani marauders while highways running through rural areas and forests in Kaduna state now function as hunting grounds for kidnapping syndicates and bandits.

The pattern is devastatingly consistent in Niger state, Nassarawa and Kwara where terrorists and other armed groups strike with impunity. To make matters worse, security forces tend to arrive hours too late, leaving communities bury their dead while awaiting justice that remains elusive.

Apparently, the state security system is overwhelmed and if not helpless in the face of this security conundrum.

To be clear, what is happening is not always a failure of individual courage among security personnel. I believe many of them serve with distinction even when they are forced to operate under very difficult and if not strenuous circumstances.

The problem is about a security governance system that has failed miserably. The structural breakdown of a state's capacity to protect its own citizens by every consideration connotes state failure.

The state's moral legitimacy in monopolizing instruments of coercion or violence is forfeited when its security architecture is unable to prevent mass atrocities of the magnitude that we have witnessed and continue to witness in the middle belt and across the North.

In light of this, the overarching question that needs to be addressed is not whether vulnerable communities wish to defend themselves but whether the Nigerian state can morally continue to deprive them of the means to survive when its ability to do so is either non existant or, at best, consistently insufficient.

The 1999 Constitution, Section 33, guarantees every person the right to life. Unsurprisingly, international human rights law recognizes that this right creates positive obligations for states to protect their citizens from foreseeable threats. However, when a state repeatedly fails to fulfill this duty, international jurisprudence increasingly acknowledges derivative rights to self-defense

To clarify, the argument here encompasses not only individual possession of firearms but also community defense systems. After all, international humanitarian law recognizes the principle of "self-defense groups" in contexts of state failure or ethnic cleansing, granted that these defense groups maintain a command structure, distinguish combatants from harmless civilians and respect the laws of war.

Isn’t this a viable international framework upon which a community defense system could be established?

Consider our current troubles or security dilemma. Vulnerable communities that have suffered the brunt of brutal attacks are not asking to become unregulated militias but desperately asking for organized survival.

The end-goal is security first.

They want to live in Peace.

They are tired of being run over repeatedly by unyielding marauding forces.

Clearly, the philosophical case for community defense is in itself anchored on the doctrine of necessity.

When systematic attacks create reasonable certainty of future assault on the one hand, and the state capacity to secure or protect its citizens is demonstrably unavailable on the other, then it means vulnerable communities possess an inherent right to self-preservation that precedes positive law.

The terrorists and bandits operate with superior firepower. In many instances, they overpowered even military formations. They seem to have an effective intelligence network and high mobility. But then, our laws restrict civilian firearm access to single-shot hunting weapons while those terrorists and bandits move with automatic assault rifles and grade A military hardware almost unchallenged.

This asymmetry is not just unfair but fatal.

The time has come for a paradigm shift. A consideration for a new community defense framework that is operationalized through standardized training, background vetting, and accountability to traditional or local government authorities.

The framework must be a defensive-only mandate that limits roles to territorial protection, prohibiting offensive operations, revenge attacks, or interference with lawful authority. They should be allowed to operate with weapons that are appropriate to withstand the firepower of terrorists and other sophisticated criminal groups.

Although critics will argue that arming communities risks escalating violence, enabling reprisal killings, and accelerating state fragmentation, notwithstanding, the alternative—continued civilian vulnerability—produces its own catastrophic outcomes, including continued wanton destruction of innocent lives and properties, human displacement, food insecurity, radicalization, and the complete collapse of social trust.

Again, the right question is not whether communities defending themselves carry certain risks, but whether those risks weigh more heavily than the destruction or annihilation of villages by heavily armed bandits and terrorists.

The right to life cannot remain an abstract concept while people living in vulnerable communities are systematically decimated. The time has come for a profound reimagining of our national security architecture that allows local communities to be integrated as partners in security provisioning rather than being passive recipients of inadequate state services.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature. When a state cannot uphold its protective covenant, it must also not deny its citizens the right tools to uphold it themselves.

Security First!

Joseph Lengmang Ph.D is a Peace and Security Expert, Community Mobiliser, Policy Analyst Researcher and former Director General, Plateau Peace Building Agency (PPBA)