Nigeria may be entering a new chapter in its long-running battle against insecurity as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu moves to strengthen the country’s security architecture through a major expansion of the Nigerian Army and a new strategic focus on Homeland Security.
The President’s approval for the expansion of the Nigerian Army to 12 divisions, alongside the recruitment of 28,000 additional personnel, represents one of the most significant efforts in recent years to increase the country’s operational capacity and bring security responses closer to communities and areas facing emerging threats.
At the heart of the reform is a simple but powerful objective: when danger emerges, security forces must be close enough to respond quickly, strong enough to contain the threat and flexible enough to adapt to the situation. For a country as vast and complex as Nigeria, the geographical distribution of security formations matters. The new Army structure is therefore expected to provide wider territorial coverage, faster local response and greater tactical flexibility.
Rather than relying heavily on distant formations to respond to crises, the creation and reorganisation of divisional commands will allow military commanders to develop deeper knowledge of the terrain, communities and security challenges within their areas of responsibility.
Under the new structure, the 1 Division in Kaduna will cover Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Jigawa States, while the 2 Division in Ibadan will oversee Oyo, Osun, Ekiti and Ondo States. The 3 Division in Jos will be responsible for Plateau, Bauchi and Gombe States, while the new 5 Division in Makurdi will cover Benue, Nasarawa and Kogi States. In the South-South, the 6 Division in Port Harcourt will cover Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, while the proposed 83 Division in Benin City will oversee Edo, Delta and Bayelsa States.
The 7 Division in Maiduguri will continue to cover Borno and Yobe States, while the 8 Division in Sokoto will be responsible for Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara States. The new 9 Division in Ilorin will cover Kwara and Niger States, while the 10 Division in Jalingo will oversee Taraba and Adamawa States. The 81 Division in Lagos will cover Lagos and Ogun States, while the 82 Division in Enugu will be responsible for Enugu, Anambra, Abia, Ebonyi and Imo States.
The significance of the restructuring goes beyond simply increasing the number of military formations. By positioning divisional headquarters closer to strategic security corridors, the Army could potentially shorten the time required to deploy troops, improve battlefield intelligence and give commanders greater freedom to make rapid tactical decisions based on local circumstances.
For communities facing kidnapping, terrorism, banditry, communal violence or attacks on critical infrastructure, the value of a faster response cannot be overstated. The recruitment of 28,000 additional personnel is equally expected to strengthen the Army’s capacity.
Nigeria’s security challenges are increasingly demanding simultaneous operations across multiple theatres. Additional manpower would give the Army greater flexibility to sustain operations in troubled areas while maintaining other essential responsibilities, including border protection, protection of critical national infrastructure and support for civil authorities when required.
The expansion, therefore, could help reduce the pressure on existing formations and minimise the risk of overstretching troops who are already operating across multiple fronts. But while more troops and more formations may strengthen the country’s physical security capacity, the bigger question is how effectively intelligence and information will move across Nigeria’s security institutions.
This is where the appointment of retired Major General Adeyinka Famadewa as Special Adviser to the President on Homeland Security becomes particularly significant. Famadewa’s appointment appears to form part of a broader effort to rethink Nigeria’s security architecture from the top, with a stronger emphasis on intelligence fusion, inter-agency coordination, border security, disaster management and rapid domestic response.
The Homeland Security concept is expected to complement the work of the Office of the National Security Adviser rather than replace it. The idea is to create stronger coordination among Nigeria’s numerous domestic security and emergency management institutions, ensuring that intelligence generated by one agency can be effectively shared, analysed and translated into timely action.
The Department of State Services, Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigeria Immigration Service, Nigeria Customs Service, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Federal Fire Service and National Emergency Management Agency, among others, all possess specialised capabilities. The challenge has often been how to make these capabilities work together seamlessly.
The Homeland Security Plan being developed under the President’s new advisory structure could provide a strategic framework for addressing that challenge. The approach recognises that insecurity is no longer a problem that can be solved by one agency or through military force alone. As Major General Famadewa has previously argued, modern society is interconnected, and modern security threats are equally interconnected.
Terrorism can intersect with organised crime; border insecurity can fuel trafficking; economic hardship can create vulnerabilities; and natural disasters can generate humanitarian and security crises. His warning that relying on military force alone to solve insecurity is like “using paracetamol to cure cancer” captures the argument for a broader, multidimensional security strategy.
The former senior military officer, whose career spans more than three decades of military and intelligence service, has experience in national security strategy, intelligence fusion, counter-terrorism operations and international security diplomacy. His role as Special Adviser is therefore expected to provide President Tinubu with strategic advice on how to move Nigeria from a fragmented response system towards a more integrated Homeland Security framework.
The emerging security blueprint could see greater attention paid to intelligence sharing, border management, state policing coordination, disaster response and the effective deployment of security resources based on identified threats.
In this emerging architecture, the expanded Nigerian Army would provide greater operational reach, while the Homeland Security framework would help strengthen the coordination of intelligence and domestic security responses. In simple terms, the Army expansion is about putting more boots closer to the ground, while the Homeland Security strategy is about ensuring that the right information reaches the right people quickly enough to make those boots more effective.
The distinction between the Homeland Security initiative, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Police Affairs and the Office of the National Security Adviser will also remain important as the reforms evolve. The objective, according to the emerging thinking, is not to create competing centres of authority but to establish clearer responsibilities, stronger coordination and better accountability across the national security system.
The Federal Government is also expected to continue examining the implementation of the State Police with the roles of various vigilante organisations and security outfits operating across the country, with the possibility of streamlining overlapping structures and improving accountability.
The role of NEMA and other emergency management institutions could equally receive greater attention under a more integrated Homeland Security framework, particularly in responding to floods, fires, humanitarian emergencies and other disasters that require rapid coordination across government agencies.
The implementation of the Army’s new force structure is expected to be phased. The first phase, involving the establishment of the 5, 9 and 10 Divisions and the reorganisation of existing formations, is expected to be completed by September 2026. The second phase, which includes the establishment of the 83 Division and further organisational adjustments, is projected for completion by December 2026. If successfully implemented, the reforms could mark a fundamental shift in Nigeria’s approach to national security.
The goal is not simply to have more soldiers or more security agencies. It is to build a security system that is faster in response, smarter in intelligence, stronger in coordination and more flexible in dealing with threats that constantly change shape.
President Tinubu’s approval of the Army expansion, therefore, may be only one part of a much larger security transformation. With 28,000 additional personnel strengthening the operational arm of the security architecture and Major General Famadewa advising the Presidency on a broader Homeland Security Plan, Nigeria appears to be moving towards a model in which military strength is combined with intelligence fusion, inter-agency coordination, local responsiveness and strategic foresight.
The real test, however, will be implementation. If the new formations are properly resourced, the additional personnel adequately trained and the Homeland Security framework effectively integrated with existing security institutions, the reforms could give Nigeria something it has urgently needed: a security architecture capable of seeing threats earlier, responding faster and adapting smarter.
And ultimately, that may be the most important measure of the new security blueprint, not the number of divisions on paper, but how quickly and effectively the Nigerian security system can protect the lives, livelihoods and communities of its citizens.
– Bello Akinkunmi Yakub is the Editor of Parrot Reporters and member, Renewed Hope Global.