Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - State

Thanks Oohay, I feel comforted by your comments.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

On Sat, 14 Mar 2026 at 04:42, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovadepojuifa@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Powerful.
>
> What can we do?
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 8:01 PM Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> The Nigerian State is Crumbling as we watch
>>
>> Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 13th March 2026
>>
>> The Nigerian State is crumbling. There is widespread violence
>> orchestrated by state actors and state supported actors at the same
>> time that violent insurgencies and bandit-orchestrated violence is
>> spreading and deepening. At the same time, institutions are crumbling
>> as they get diverted to serve the interest of those in power. The
>> judiciary has become a sad tale of the perpetuation of injustice to
>> serve the interest of those in power. The tax authorities have been
>> turned into a weapon to impoverish the people as multiple taxation
>> through bank withdrawals, VAT, personal income taxes augmentation is
>> all synchronized to get every last kobo from ordinary Nigerians whose
>> income is incapable of meeting their daily needs. The police lives
>> simply to provide security for VIPs and not security for the people.
>> Meanwhile, electricity and other municipal charges have been
>> multiplied to actively promote mass penury. The irony is that the
>> president finds it funny and announces with glee that he has made the
>> state set up an independent solar system for his house and office just
>> as he tells Nigerians they must pay the "unpayable" electricity
>> charges being charged to consumers. Objective political science can
>> only describe such policies as wickedness.
>>
>> In his recent article on constant government violence organised
>> against opposition members, my good friend Dakuku Peterside warms
>> against the dangers of allowing violence to consume our democracy:
>> "Democracies do not usually collapse because one day violence suddenly
>> appears from nowhere. They decay when violence is normalised in
>> increments—first as intimidation, then as disruption, then as
>> reprisal, and finally as a parallel language of politics. Once public
>> life begins to reward menace more than persuasion, elections stop
>> being contests of ideas and become tests of brute capacity. At that
>> point, the ballot is still printed, the rallies are still advertised,
>> and the parties still campaign, but the civic meaning of politics has
>> already been hollowed out."
>>
>> The tragedy of the situation is that the government is acting this way
>> in a context in which decades of poor governance has already created a
>> context of State fragility that can easily push the country into the
>> abyss. Nigeria remains one of the most terrorism-affected countries in
>> the world. There is mass violence driven primarily by Boko Haram,
>> Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), armed bandit networks, and
>> emerging jihadist groups operating along the Sahel corridor.
>>
>> The insurgency that began in 2009 has killed more than 40,000 people
>> and displaced over 2 million civilians in northeastern Nigeria alone.
>> Subsequently, militant violence developed in the Northwest - in the
>> Nigeria–Niger–Benin border region covering most States and then moved
>> to the Northcentral zone of the country.
>>
>> In the Northeast, terrorist attacks on army formations have increased
>> considerably over the last six months and the terrorists appear to be
>> besieging and encircling Maiduguri for takeover. In its propaganda
>> messages published by its media wing, Amaq, ISWAP has been boasting of
>> the successes of its attacks against the military in the zone and the
>> elimination of officers. In the Northwest, terrorist forces from Mali
>> and Niger have descended southwards and now occupy territory from
>> Sokoto through Zamfara to Niger and Kwara states. Armed bandits from
>> these forces with an agenda of pillaging and implementing a scorched
>> earth policy have moved to the Northcentral and to the south as Benue
>> and Plateau States continue to bleed. Increasingly the situation has
>> been turning into an equal opportunity action with other youth gangs
>> integrating into and spreading the chaos.
>>
>> The response of the Nigerian Government is to get the United States to
>> deploy about 200 soldiers to Nigeria's North-east to provide training
>> and support counterterrorism operations. The deployment came after
>> weeks of diplomatic tension between the Nigerian government and the
>> United States, sparked by remarks from President Donald Trump, who
>> claimed that a "Christian genocide" was carried out by Islamist
>> militant groups in Nigeria. The reality is that Christians, Muslims
>> and everyone else are being massacred. The Nigerian Government is yet
>> to do what is necessary, expand the armed forces and adopt their
>> strategy to successfully combat scattered fast moving asymmetrical
>> bandit/terrorist warfare.
>>
>> Rather than focus on trying to reassert state authority and
>> re-establish peace, the government is concentrating on destroying the
>> political opposition with the objective of ensuring they are not
>> capable of contesting the 2027 elections. The risk is that they might
>> succeed in disrupting the opposition and ALL OF US LOSE the country to
>> terrorists and insurgents. What would it profit President Tinubu to
>> destroy the political opposition only to find out he has no country to
>> rule over?
>>
>> Meanwhile, The Nigerian economy is doing very badly if you talk to the
>> people and very well if you talk to the IMF. The more the Bretton
>> Woods institutions praise President Tinubu for cutting fuel subsidy,
>> floating the Naira and overtaxing the people, the more Nigerians groan
>> on their plight. The divide is about the interest of the people and
>> can clearly be seen when we look at agriculture. Under President
>> Tinubu, Nigeria spent N51 billion ($34.4 million) on foreign rice in
>> 2024, signalling a sharp reversal of the self-sufficiency gains by the
>> previous administration. Today, local rice has become uncompetitive
>> against cheaper imports. Government policy has imposed high production
>> costs and expensive energy pricing Nigerian farmers out of their own
>> market. Concordant reports indicate that farmers in key States such as
>> Kano, Kebbi and Jigawa are exiting rice production.
>>
>> Most of the rice mills that were flourishing under President Buhari
>> have shut down operations because they cannot compete with the price
>> of foreign rice. Small-scale millers are particularly vulnerable to
>> the rising costs of diesel and high interest rates on loans. The Rice
>> Millers Association of Nigeria has warned that the local industry is
>> on the brink of collapse. Most surviving mills operate with massive
>> unutilised capacity, which drives up their overhead costs. The federal
>> government's decision to grant import waivers on essential goods has
>> created a crisis for agricultural production. Farmers find themselves
>> in a new reality in which rice cultivation has become a loss-making
>> venture. The collapse of the rice value chain is undoing years of
>> carefully crafted agricultural self-sufficiency programming.
>>
>> A situation in which State power is abused, government is extorting
>> citizens, non-state actors are killing and maiming the people and the
>> economy is made to work against the people is a dangerous one. The
>> present conjecture of elections on the horizon that are being eroded
>> of a level playing field adds to the overriding sense of growing
>> injustice. If the government does not care, we the people must do what
>> is necessary to save our country, our institutions and our democracy.
>> The time has come to move from lamentations to action.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
>> Senior Fellow
>> Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
>> Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
>>
>> --
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>
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> Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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