Legal Identity And National Security In Nigeria

Opara Rebekah Ijeoma & Dr. Peter Chukwuma Obutte, University of Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

While the primary responsibility for securing lives and property lies with the State according to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, high levels of insecurity continue to plague the Nigerian society. This paper investigates the connection between legal identity and national security in Nigeria and a number of related issues including border management and migration, statelessness, refugees and terrorism financing. Data generation technique for the article was through a desk analysis of secondary data from books, journals, newspapers, and web sources. The paper attempted to answer the question on the relationship between legal identity and national security in Nigeria. The paper reveals that while Nigeria has taken steps towards ensuring a more secure country through improved national identification systems, a lot remains to be done including improved birth registration, cooperation between security agencies and credible efforts to combat terrorism financing. The paper concludes that efforts towards achieving universal legal identity coverage in Nigeria are crucial for improved national security in Nigeria however, such efforts must be complemented by other efforts including securing porous borders, interoperability and cooperation between security agencies and identification agencies, and increased focus on civil registration.