Nigerians suffer as military expenditure rises
Nigeria’s 2025 national budget heavily favours the defence and security sector, which consumes nearly ten per cent of total expenditure. By contrast, health receives slightly less than five per cent, while the social investment budget, at under one per cent, lags even further behind. Yet despite more than a decade of steadily increasing security spending, the country’s persistent threats from terrorism, banditry, and other forms of criminality show little sign of abating.
According to numerous reports, including one by the civic engagement NGO Budgit Foundation violent criminal and terrorist threats to the population have risen sharply over the same period in which budgets allocated to combating them have ballooned. The question, therefore, seems warranted: is this spending still insufficient, misdirected, or inefficiently used?
Poverty and violence
Reports from the National Bureau of Statistics and the World Bank concur on the pervasive poverty in Nigeria, which, according to World Bank estimates, is home to around 125 million extremely poor people—roughly half the population. And the situation is worsening. GDP per capita has fallen from US$2,070 in 2015 to just US$824 in 2025, placing Nigeria among the lowest in Africa. Unsurprisingly, this decline correlates with rising criminality: with limited access to education or employment, many young men across numerous states are drawn into militias, political terror groups, and gangs.
Instead of addressing the root causes of poverty and creating opportunities beyond violence and crime for young Nigerians, the government continues to channel ever-increasing funds into defence and security. This budgetary approach has not delivered greater safety for Nigerians; indeed, it could be argued that it is making matters worse.
The security spending is prone to corruption
Contributing to this view, firstly, is the opacity of security spending and the associated risk of corruption. Large-scale fraud in military contracts came to light in 2016, when then–Vice President Osinbajo publicly admitted that as much as US$15 billion had been stolen from the military budget in preceding years.
This followed the findings of a panel convened in May 2015 by President Muhammadu Buhari — then newly elected, now late — to investigate vast military expenditures ostensibly incurred in the “fight against terrorism,” during a period when Boko Haram’s militias were continuing to expand their operations and seize territory. The panel’s report uncovered “massive fraud” and prompted the investigation of 38 others, most of them senior military generals, politicians, and defence contractors.
Buhari’s vice president, Osinbajo, stated at the time: “Far too much has been lost. (…) The nation’s foreign reserves are now around $27 billion, and this amount of US$15 billion is more than half of the country’s current foreign reserves.”
Ruling party benefits
A Transparency International report on the scandal, which also examined findings from anti-corruption agencies and the auditor-general, later concluded that “these billions of dollars were diverted from procurement spending, through the use of ‘briefcase’ companies, in order to fund the ruling party’s supporters and ensure electoral success for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 general elections.”
The unusual public scrutiny and acknowledgement of corruption in defence spending in 2016 were likely linked to the fact that the incoming government had been formed by the previous opposition. This new administration was eager to pursue its former rivals, the then-ruling PDP party. However, under the new ruling party, the APC, which has been in power since 2015, investigations into corruption have ceased— even when requested in parliament (see below). Meanwhile, spending has continued to increase.
Huge sums of money are secret
Another vast and expanding opaque conduit for security spending is the so-called ‘security vote’: the term used for security budgets allocated to the various structures that constitute the Nigerian federation. The country’s three tiers of government—federal, state, and local—allocate substantial sums as security votes, which remain unaccounted for. Monitoring corruption within this pipeline is virtually impossible due to this secrecy.
According to a separate Transparency International report, these amounts are staggering: “Our analysis of 29 state budgets (no data is available for the other seven states) reveals that they spend an average of US$580 million annually on security votes.” The report also highlights federal government security votes, averaging over US$50 million per year, and local government security votes, estimating that “assuming the chairpersons of Nigeria’s 774 local government areas each receive an average of US$55,000 annually in security vote funding, local government security votes would total approximately US$42.6 million.” The security vote is more than 70 per cent of the annual budget of the Nigeria Police Force and surpasses the combined budgets of the Nigerian Army, Navy, and Air Force.
“When you need these people, they are nowhere to be found”
Compounding the problem of the opacity surrounding these vast sums, military spending has often failed to translate into effective utilisation of Nigeria’s security forces. Notably, provisions for feeding and paying soldiers do not appear to be consistently included in the expenditure. Earlier this year, soldiers publicly complained about poor-quality food and unpaid wages—claims promptly denied by military authorities.
Nigeria’s military forces have reportedly been infiltrated by the very groups they are tasked with combating. The Governor of Borno State in the North-East, Babagana Zulum, recently stated: “We have informants and collaborators within the Nigerian armed forces, within the politicians, and within the communities.” Similarly, Dauda Lawal, Governor of Zamfara State in North-West Nigeria, spoke on national television last year, highlighting the military’s frequent absence when needed: “We, as governors, don’t have control over the military, we don’t have control over the police as well as the civil defence. In most cases, we get frustrated. When you need these people, they are nowhere to be found.” In an effort to address this issue, some state governors have used their security budgets to establish quasi-military units. However, these militias have also been implicated in partisan political clashes, often targeting opposition groups and civilians more broadly. (see this ZAM investigations article, for example).
Children sucked in
Meanwhile, as Nigeria groans under violent conflict involving both state and non-state actors, vital sectors such as health, education, water, and public utilities generally suffer. The health sector is burdened by inadequate infrastructure, insufficient funding, and a shortage of skilled healthcare professionals—particularly in rural areas—resulting in high rates of preventable diseases, low life expectancy, and elevated maternal and child mortality. The education sector also faces severe challenges, with Nigeria having one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children globally: over 20 million of its 110 million under-18s do not receive formal education.
As noted in the introduction to this article, the lack of educational and employment opportunities for Nigeria’s youth is itself a contributing factor to the recruitment of young men into terrorist groups, militias, and bandit gangs. The United Nations reported what it termed ‘verified recruitment’ of youths by terrorists from 2017 to 2019, numbering 1,385 children—although the actual figure is likely much higher. The Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), a regional military alliance fighting the Boko Haram insurgency, corroborates reports that Boko Haram has continued to intensify child recruitment, primarily targeting impoverished communities.
Nigeria also receives millions in foreign military aid
Many Nigerians would welcome increased scrutiny by Nigeria’s development partners regarding the allocation and use of the country’s substantial security budgets. After all, Nigeria also receives millions of US dollars in additional military assistance from the United States. Programmes with imposing titles—such as International Military Education and Training (IMET), Foreign Military Financing (FMF), Peacekeeping Operations Funds (PKO), Excess Defence Articles (EDA), Counterterrorism Security Partnerships (TSCTP), and Conventional Weapons Destruction and Mine Action—all come with significant budgets. The 2017 Transparency International report cited above estimates US security assistance to Nigeria at approximately US$68.6 million over the five years since 2012, while the UK pledged GBP 40 million in terrorism support in 2016 for a four-year period ending in 2020.
The EU allocates many millions of Euros to programmes aimed at mitigating the devastating consequences of the Boko Haram conflict in the northern region. Since 2014, it has provided nearly €400 million in humanitarian aid to this terror-stricken area, along with several additional tens of millions for development and peace-building initiatives designed to address the root causes of the conflict and foster long-term resilience in affected communities. (see here and here).
Japa
International partners may also have an interest in encouraging Nigeria to adopt a more nuanced approach to its security challenges from a migration perspective. While hundreds of thousands of young Nigerian men are drawn into cycles of violence, others—those who manage to save money—simply leave the country to “japa,” or escape, in an attempt to reach the West at any cost. It may therefore be in the West’s own stated interest to encourage Nigeria to move away from a solely military response and instead invest in sectors that alleviate poverty and generate employment.
Probes are urgently needed
Nigeria’s leaders would do well to stop treating corruption solely as a tool to undermine rival politicians. As long as corrupt officials are exposed only when out of power—often by the new ruling party seizing the opportunity to reveal their predecessors’ misdeeds—the fight against corruption risks perpetual failure. In December 2024, former lawmaker Senator Shehu Sani called on the current Tinubu administration to investigate military expenditure under the late President Muhammadu Buhari, who belonged to the same political party, the APC. However, parliament, also controlled by the APC, dismissed the call. Earlier, in June 2024, the Senate had rejected a motion by Senator Adams Oshiomhole to probe funds allocated to the military under Buhari for combating insurgency and banditry across Nigeria.
It is urgent that the relevant parliamentary committees, in collaboration with anti-corruption agencies, strengthen oversight to ensure that the country’s budgets are used adequately and transparently, regardless of which party is in power. In this regard, Nigeria’s international partners—who seemingly desire a more secure and prosperous future for our citizens—should keep a vigilant eye.
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