Insecurity: Nigeria’s Global Image Under Siege

By Ugo Inyama

A nation’s reputation is like a white garment worn before the world: delicate, visible, and unforgiving. Every success brightens it; every failure dulls it. But insecurity does not merely dull a garment; it stains it. It leaves marks that seep through every thread of a country’s identity, affecting how it is seen, judged, engaged, and remembered. Nigeria, a land of immense promise and extraordinary talent, today wears a garment stained by relentless violence, kidnappings, and instability. What could have been a tapestry of hope has instead become a cloth blotched by fear and fragility, a story told in shadows rather than sunlight.

Insecurity has grown from an internal challenge into the defining narrative of Nigeria’s global image. It is the headline that precedes our innovations, the footnote attached to our diplomacy, and the subtext in every investment discussion. The images that travel across continents, burnt communities, grieving families, displaced children counteract the images we wish the world would see: our music, our creativity, our entrepreneurship, our resilience. The stain travels faster than the shine, and for now, it dominates.

A Country Held Hostage by Fear

The scale of the problem is undeniable. Insecurity has spread across the country like an ink spill that refuses to dry. What began as a Northeast insurgency has morphed into a national crisis. Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorise villages; bandits occupy forests and highways; kidnappers raid homes, estates, schools, and churches; farmer–herder clashes devastate entire regions. Even interstate travel, once mundane, now feels like a calculated risk that begins with silent prayers. The fear is not abstract; it is daily, lived, and deeply rooted.

This lived fear is not hidden from the world. It crosses oceans through news broadcasts, diplomatic advisories, and investment memos. Foreign companies read of attacks and quietly reconsider their plans. Families abroad urge their loved ones to avoid travelling home. Airlines adjust their routes. Insurance premiums rise. Entrepreneurs who should be expanding their businesses instead spend more on private security. Nigeria’s economic potential remains immense, but insecurity has become the tax that no one budgeted for an invisible but suffocating cost that discourages investment, stunts growth, and distorts opportunity.

Foreign direct investment tells the story starkly. Despite our population and market size, inflows have stagnated at historic lows. Investors are not sentimental; they are guided by risk. And risk, in Nigeria, is too often spelled as kidnapping, armed attacks, political volatility, or weak enforcement of the rule of law. Even domestic investors, who once braved all odds, increasingly move towards Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, or Côte d’Ivoire, countries with smaller markets but safer reputations. The stain shapes decisions long before any official dialogue begins.

Tourism, too, has paid a heavy price. Few African nations possess Nigeria’s blend of landscapes, culture, wildlife, and history. Yet Obudu Mountain Resort sits mostly empty; the waterfalls of Erin-Ijesha remain underexplored; and the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove does not receive a fraction of the attention it deserves. Instead of photos of festivals and forests, the world sees travel advisories warning against road movement or visits to entire regions. Nations build soft power by inviting the world in; Nigeria, inadvertently, has created a wall of caution around itself.

Diplomatically, insecurity casts a long shadow. Nigeria has historically played a leadership role in Africa, peacekeeping missions, conflict mediation, regional integration. But internal instability weakens external credibility. It becomes harder to bargain from a position of strength when the home front is fragile. Our diplomats know it; the diaspora feels it. Every headline about violence becomes another layer of burden carried by Nigerians abroad, who must defend a homeland they love but whose challenges are too visible to deny.

Yet perhaps the deepest wound is not external but internal. Insecurity erodes trust, trust in government, trust in institutions, trust between neighbours, trust in the idea that Nigeria can work for all. When citizens no longer feel protected, they retreat into ethnic cocoons, turn to vigilante groups, or resign themselves to despair. Communities that once coexisted begin to view each other with suspicion. Non-state actors gain influence as the state loses authority. A society cannot flourish when fear becomes its daily rhythm.

Young people, especially, bear the psychological weight. Their dreams are shaped by caution rather than ambition. They choose universities based on safety, decline jobs that require travel, avoid night outings, and increasingly see emigration not as an option but as an escape. A country whose youth live in fear is a country whose future negotiates constantly with uncertainty.

But a stained garment is not a ruined one. Nations have recovered from civil wars, insurgencies, and decades of turmoil to build stronger identities rooted in resilience. Nigeria can follow the same path, but only with honesty and decisive action. Pretending that insecurity is exaggerated will not wash the stain out. Only meaningful, sustained reform will.

A Way Forward: Restoring Security, Restoring Image

Nigeria must rebuild from the foundation: modernising policing through decentralisation and technology, strengthening intelligence gathering, empowering communities with early-warning mechanisms, and reinstating faith in a justice system that today moves too slowly to deter crime. Poverty, unemployment, and exclusion must be confronted head-on, because idle youths are the raw material for every criminal network. Borders must be secured not in theory but in practice to choke off the flow of arms, traffickers, and extremists. The state must reassert its monopoly on force, not through loud declarations but through quiet, consistent enforcement.

Alongside these reforms, Nigeria must reclaim its narrative truthfully, not cosmetically. Reputation is not repaired by propaganda but by proof. Each secured road, each rescued victim, each dismantled gang, each restored community becomes part of a new story that gradually replaces the old stain. The world will not believe Nigeria is safe until Nigerians themselves feel safe. The image will not change until the reality does.

Nigeria should not be defined by insecurity. It should be defined by its music, its literature, its intellect, its enterprise, its courage, and its boundless possibilities. The stain may be dark, but the cloth beneath it is strong. It can shine again if we decide that safety is not optional, if leadership acts with urgency, and if citizens refuse to surrender hope.

The garment is stained, yes. But it is not beyond redemption. And the world is waiting to see what we do next.

*Ugo Inyama writes from the African Digital Governance Centre, Manchester, UK.
www.africandgc.org