The recent call by Senator Francis Fadahunsi, representing Osun East, to replace Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as National Security Adviser (NSA) with a retired military officer is not merely misguided; it is intellectually bankrupt, democratically corrosive, and strategically dangerous. It reeks of nostalgia for a militarized past that has already failed Nigeria, and it betrays a shallow, reductionist view of security leadership that belongs in the dustbin of history. It reflects an antiquated view of security leadership that reduces national security to boots, bullets, and barracks. It is a fossilized reflex, a relic of authoritarian nostalgia masquerading as advice. It confuses uniforms with wisdom, rank with legitimacy, and brute force with strategy. It is precisely this militarized reflex that has left Nigeria trapped in cycles of insurgency, banditry, and repression. To demand Ribadu’s removal on the grounds that he is not a soldier is to confuse security management with battlefield command. To amputate Nigeria’s strategic brain and replace it with a clenched fist would be national folly.
National security in the 21st century is not a parade ground exercise. It is a multidimensional architecture encompassing political stability, economic resilience, cyber defense, food security, energy sustainability, and environmental safeguards. To suggest that only retired generals can manage this complexity is to confuse strategy with drill, intelligence with intimidation, and governance with garrison mentality. Globally, the NSA role is overwhelmingly civilian. Jake Sullivan in the United States is a lawyer. Tim Barrow in the UK is a diplomat. Nigeria itself has precedent: Gambo Jimeta and Aliyu Ismaila Gwarzo, both former police chiefs, served as NSA with distinction. To insist that only retired generals can fill the role is ahistorical, anti democratic, and intellectually bankrupt.
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu is not a novice or placeholder parachuted into national security. He is a seasoned intelligence professional, a former police officer, barrister, and the pioneering chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who built Nigeria’s most formidable anti corruption institution. His career has been defined by integrity, inter agency coordination, and counter terrorism expertise. These are the precise qualities demanded of an NSA. Since his appointment in June 2023, Ribadu has redefined Nigeria’s security architecture toward a whole of society approach, integrating political, economic, cyber, and human security dimensions. The office of the NSA is not a combatant billet. It is a strategic nerve center. Ribadu’s record in intelligence, anti corruption, and policy coordination makes him uniquely suited to the role. To call for his redeployment is to substitute competence with nostalgia, and strategy with brute force.
The NSA is not a combatant; it is a strategic coordinator. The notion that only retired officers can command respect within the armed forces is a dangerous fallacy. In a democracy, the military answers to civilian authority, not the other way around. To erode that principle is to invite authoritarian relapse. Excessive militarization of the NSA office would not strengthen Nigeria’s broader security framework; it would weaken and hollow it out, reducing national security to a narrow theatre of force while neglecting the broader dimensions that actually determine resilience. Worse, it risks returning Nigeria to the authoritarian reflexes of the past, where dissent was crushed rather than managed, and where human security was subordinated to brute force.
Ribadu has already demonstrated his capacity to confront Nigeria’s crises with nuance. He has warned against coup temptations in the Sahel, insisting Nigeria must guard its democracy jealously. He has engaged communities, faith leaders, and civil society in building resilience against violenceLeadership+1. These are not the instincts of a general issuing orders; they are the instincts of a strategist building consensus. Fadahunsi’s suggestion is not just dangerously outdated and pig-headed; it is a relic of a bygone era, a fossilized argument that confuses uniforms with wisdom and rank with legitimacy. It is the intellectual equivalent of prescribing leeches in modern medicine; outdated, ineffective, and dangerous.
Nigeria’s security challenges demand brains, not barracks; coordination, not combat; integrity, not intimidation. Ribadu embodies these qualities. To replace him with a retired military officer would be to amputate Nigeria’s strategic brain and replace it with a clenched fist. Calls for his replacement are not just wrongheaded; they are a reckless attempt to drag Nigeria backwards into a militarized past that has already failed. This rebuke is categorical: Nigeria must not regress into militarized nostalgia. Nigeria needs strategic leadership, not recycled generals. Ribadu stays.
