Nigeria’s security challenges are often blamed on weak policing, intelligence failures, or poor funding. But beneath the checkpoints and patrols lies a quieter crisis that is rooted in the home.
Across the country, the family unit, once Nigeria’s first moral institution, is struggling to pass on values such as honesty, restraint, empathy, and respect for life. That failure, experts warn, is now directly feeding the nation’s security breakdown.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigerian households recorded an estimated 51.9 million crime incidents between May 2023 and April 2024, while 2.2 million citizens were kidnapped, with ransom payments exceeding ₦2.2 trillion nationwide.
“These figures reflect more than policing gaps,” says Dr. Bulama Bukarti, a senior security analyst and researcher on violent conflict. “They point to a deep social and moral failure. When young people grow up without strong ethical boundaries, criminal groups find it easier to recruit, radicalise, and mobilise them.”
For generations, Nigerian families functioned as moral gatekeepers. Children learned early that misconduct carried consequences beyond the individual and that shame, honour, and communal responsibility mattered.
That structure is now under strain and is fast eroding. Economic hardship has forced many parents into long hours of work, leaving little time for supervision or value-building.
Moral instruction is increasingly outsourced to schools, religious institutions, the child’s immediate environment or abandoned altogether.
According to Professor Pat Utomi, political economist and founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership, Nigeria’s crisis is fundamentally ethical.
“We focus too much on systems and too little on values,” Utomi has repeatedly argued. “No nation survives when families stop teaching character and instead teach only survival.”
In many homes, children witness contradictions that undermine moral teaching, particularly when they see parents condemning corruption, engage in bribery, or criticizing fraud while celebrating unexplained wealth. The message absorbed is that integrity is optional.
“When children see hypocrisy at home, moral lessons lose all credibility,” says Professor Akin Oyebode, a senior advocate of Nigeria and professor of international law. “You cannot preach virtue and practice vice and expect the child to choose virtue.”
Nigeria is losing its population power-house to vices as security challenges are increasingly youth-driven. From banditry and cultism to cybercrime and insurgency, young people dominate both recruitment and execution, a scenario that should slap us awake.
Research consistently links weak parental supervision and family instability to youth involvement in crime. In Nigeria, millions of young people grow up in fragmented homes or without consistent guidance.
“Violence does not emerge in a vacuum,” explains Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, the former Minister of Education and a long-time advocate for child development. “When children are not grounded in values early, society ends up trying to correct adults with guns instead of correcting children with guidance.”
Extremist and criminal groups exploit this moral vacuum. They offer money, identity, and belonging to youths already detached from ethical and communal anchors.
Dr. Bukarti notes that insurgent recruitment thrives where moral and social structures have collapsed. “Where families fail to provide direction, armed groups step in to provide purpose—however destructive that purpose may be.”
The consequences are visible. Mass kidnappings, including the abduction of over 300 schoolchildren and teachers in Niger State, illustrate how insecurity now targets even the most vulnerable.
The fallout from insecurity extends far beyond immediate victims. Schools shut down, farmlands are abandoned, businesses close, and families are pushed into deeper poverty through ransom payments.
According to Dr. Aisha Garba, a development and education policy expert, insecurity and moral neglect reinforce each other. “Children withdrawn from school due to fear are more likely to be recruited into crime. Once education and values are disrupted, the cycle becomes self-sustaining.”
Communal trust also erodes. Neighbours hesitate to intervene. Communities protect criminals because they are “our own.” Over time, deviance becomes normalised.
Experts agree that Nigeria cannot rely on force alone. “A nation cannot arrest its way out of moral collapse,” says Utomi. “Security must be preventive, and prevention begins with values taught at home.”
To this end, parenting education and family support programmes must be put in place to enlighten couples and would-be parents on the expectations associated with such tasks. Value-based education should also be integrated into schools to build on the foundation laid by the family unit.
Equally important is the need for youth mentorship and community engagement. Through this, the youths are able to choose and carve a path to responsible living as well as understanding and contributing meaningfully to the development of their immediate community.
The government and policy makers would also have to look inwardly and re-evaluate work schedule for parents in such a way that the challenge of parental absence would be addressed to the barest minimum. This will give parents ample time to monitor and instill the needed guidance on the next generation.
These measures, analysts stress, are not alternatives to security operations—they are their foundation.
Nigeria’s insecurity is not merely a failure of weapons or strategy. It is a reflection of moral neglect that begins in the family.
Until homes reclaim their role as the first teachers of character, criminality will continue to find willing recruits. A secure Nigeria requires more than armed patrols—it requires families that raise children who understand that some actions are wrong, no matter the reward.
ABDULAZEEZ AHMAD