A former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, and a former Director with Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Prof. Robert Rotberg, have said it is time for the United States to acknowledge that Nigeria is a failed state in light of the many security threats plaguing the country.
Campbell and Rotberg said this in an article titled, ‘The Giant of Africa is Failing’ which was published in the May/June edition of ‘Foreign Affairs magazine. The duo argued that every part of Nigeria now faces insecurity which threatens the nation’s corporate existence.
The article read in part, “Nigeria’s worldwide companions, particularly the USA, should acknowledge that Nigeria is now a failed state. In recognition of that truth, they need to deepen their engagement with the nation and search to carry the present administration accountable for its failures, while additionally working with it to supply safety and proper financial system.”
According to the article, Campbell and Rotberg noted that even the security agents have found it difficult to curb crime due to the sophisticated weapons that the criminals in the country wield.
They also noted the failure of President Buhari’s Administration, stating that the country had moved from being a weak one to a failed one.
“Underneath the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, a number of overlapping safety crises has remodelled Nigeria from a weak state right into a failed one. Buhari’s authorities has struggled to quell numerous Jihadi insurgencies, together with the one waged by the militant group Boko Haram,” the article read.
Campbell and Rotberg said the federal government seemed to have given up in some areas because non-state actors had taken over while quasi-police organisations and militias controlled by state governments had become more common. The authors stated that due to kidnappings and other crimes, several schools had been forced to shut down.
“Regional quasi-police forces and militias, generally related to state governments, however not often formally sanctioned, retain de facto authority in some areas. However in lots of others, the federal authorities have successfully ceded management to militants and criminals,” a part of the article read.
The authors of the article maintained that most failed states in Africa such as the Central African Republic, Somalia, and South Sudan are small or marginal but Nigeria, in contrast, boasts rising inhabitants of over 200 million people and could be the third-largest country on earth by 2050.
Campbell and Rotberg said happenings in Nigeria also affect other areas of Africa which shows Nigeria’s importance. They said even though Nigeria still has some signs of being viable, its structure which relies largely on oil receipts, undermines growth as well as deep-rooted corruption.
“However the Nigerian state has long failed to supply its residents with social companies and Nigerian politics is basically an elite sport disassociated from governance.
“The federal government doesn’t or cannot tax the true wealth of the nation, stays too depending on income from oil and gasoline, and lurches from one fiscal disaster to another. Corruption is structural, too, casting almost everybody as each perpetrator and sufferer,” the article read.
They argued that the United States ought to assist the push for a formidable Nigerian-led state reconstruction effort.
The authors recommended that through conferences, technical recommendations, and different instruments of ‘comfortable diplomacy,’ the US ought to help civil society and Nigerian non-governmental organisations in their efforts to strengthen the nation’s democracy.