The modern age of counterterrorism is no longer defined solely by strategy or weaponry, but by identity: how states conceive power, how armies interpret their mandate, and how citizens experience security. From Washington to Abuja, the militarisation of politics has blurred the boundary between protection and domination. Donald Trump’s unapologetic elevation of military force, his portrayal of soldiers as embodiments of national will, and his instinctive reliance on coercion rather than consensus provide a revealing lens through which to examine Nigeria’s counterterrorism system and its strained relationship with the people it is meant to protect.
Trump’s military worldview was shaped less by battlefield experience than by symbolism. The uniform became authority, strength became virtue, and dissent was frequently cast as weakness. This outlook echoed a wider global belief that terrorism can be defeated primarily through overwhelming force. In the United States, institutional safeguards and an assertive civil society moderated this impulse, even when rhetoric exceeded restraint. In Nigeria, where institutions are weaker and civilian oversight remains uneven, similar thinking has yielded far more dangerous consequences. Military operations have too often replaced accountability with impunity, leaving vulnerable communities caught between insurgent brutality and state excess.
Nigeria’s counterterrorism framework reflects this imbalance. The armed forces are repeatedly deployed as the first, last, and only instrument of internal security, transforming soldiers into enforcers of law, administrators of order, and arbiters of justice in conflict zones. Much like Trump’s vision of order imposed from above, Nigeria’s strategy has prioritised territorial dominance over public trust. The outcome is a persistent contradiction: short term tactical gains alongside long term strategic erosion. Insurgent groups exploit civilian grievances, while communities alienated by raids, detentions, and civilian harm withdraw the cooperation that effective intelligence and prevention require.
The unintended lesson from Trump’s America is that military power without civic legitimacy is fragile. Even the most formidable armed forces cannot substitute for public consent. Counterterrorism succeeds not through the imposition of fear, but through the cultivation of legitimacy. Nigeria’s dilemma is not a shortage of courageous soldiers or modern equipment; it is the absence of a security doctrine that places citizens, rather than force, at its moral core. An army perceived as an occupying presence cannot defeat adversaries who draw strength from the very populations under occupation.
The conclusion is unavoidable. States that define security exclusively through force risk perpetuating the instability they seek to eliminate. Nigeria now confronts a pivot familiar to democracies navigating an era of militarised politics: persist with a system where military identity eclipses civilian rights, or undertake a recalibration that anchors security in justice, accountability, and public trust. Power may suppress violence for a time, but only legitimacy brings it to an end.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
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