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Why this Charity Begins Abroad: Comparing Nigeria’s Foreign Peacekeeping Undertakings and Domestic Counter-insurgency Operations

Abstract The Nigerian state has had a turbulent history and even more worrisome present. Its sovereignty has been flagrantly challenged and its territorial integrity undermined by domestic non-state actors. The contemporary security challenges and indeed the incapacity of the security apparatuses to contain them contrast sharply with their past records, especially in peace enforcement abroad. Thus, this paper seeks to account for the apparent gulf between past strengths and current weaknesses of the Nigerian security machinery. It explores the country’s involvement in external peace support operations and domestic counter-insurgency efforts. The author identifies the politicisation of and corruption within the military establishment as plausible explanations for the disconnect between the recorded past (victories) and the inadequacies of today. From the standpoint of this author, to address these issues there is the need for a holistic security sector reform in Nigeria.