Last year during the celebration of Nigeria's 61st independence, several media outlets asked a vital question which is, can Nigeria be described as a failed state! Most political illiterates gave answers ranging from, no Nigeria isn't yet a failed state and the nation is still trying to come out of depression and inflation.
To describe a nation as a failed state, there are several criteria that will be considered before you a nation is ranked as a failed state. In 2005 when Nigeria was first described as a failed state, we'll use the criteria to look at the position of Nigeria and the order according to their positions.
According to the detailed Index, Somalia emerged the most failed state, for the second time running, while Norway emerged the best or most sustainable state. The index's ranks are based on twelve indicators of state vulnerability - four social, two economic and six political. The indicators are not designed to forecast when states may experience violence or collapse. Instead, they are meant to measure a state's vulnerability to collapse or conflict.Source
In as much as the index description of failed state in other happenings which include political and economics, violence within a state is supposed to be paramount in describing a state a failed nation.
The applied indicators include demographic pressures; massive movement of refugees and internally displaced peoples; legacy of vengeance-seeking group grievance; chronic and sustained human flight; uneven economic development along group lines; and sharp and/or severe economic decline.
Others are criminalisation and/or delegitimisation of the state; progressive deterioration of public services; widespread violation of human rights; security apparatus as ‘state within a state’; rise of factionalised elites; and intervention of other states or external factors.Source
In meeting up with the above indicators, 2022 can be described as a year of insecurity impersonified, because it has surpassed the expectations of Nigerians and the international organizations.
Prior to this year, the rich were some how free from kidnapping during traveling by airplanes, but today as we speak bandits and kidnappers now operates in airports and many of the bourgeoisie in Nigeria are afraid to leave their homes (which isn't safe as well) to embark on a journey.
Between March and April 2022, over 15 bombs have been detonated in several parts of Nigeria. The Boko Haram terrorists group operating in Northern Nigeria have made the region uninhabitable, while Kaduna and Zamfara States in Northwest have been the focal point of banditry operations.
In this April, a train was attacked along Abuja-Kaduna railway line, after 5 days a military base in the same Kaduna state was also attacked. The irony of life is that Kaduna houses all the military apparatus within the country, from the Nigerian Defense Academy (NDA), Zaria, Nigerian Military School, Jagi, Nigeria War College all resident in Kaduna. But Kaduna is described as the home of banditry operations.
With the secessionist tendencies of Biafra in the Southeastern region and the constant military attacks on the people, it's another indication of Nigeria being a failed state.
Food insecurity has been a major challenge facing the Nigerian state. It should be noted that most of the food consumed in the country is cultivated in the North and North-Central Nigeria. In the North-Central, there have been a constant battle between farmers and herdsmen, which have reduced the cultivation of food crops in the region. Farmers are afraid of their lives and this has become a major challenge to the nation in the area of food security.
It's even a miracle to sleep and wake up in Nigeria due to the consuming nature of insecurity within the country.
I'll say that truly the Nigerian government has failed it's citizens in all ramifications and this has to change in 2023 forthcoming elections.
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