The recent joint statement by Barrister Femi Falana and Professor Jibrin Ibrahim, titled “No To Foreign Forces In Our Land: Defend Our Sovereignty,” has attracted considerable attention. In it, they contended that the presence of United States troops in Nigeria, irrespective of advisory or training roles, constitutes a violation of national sovereignty unless enacted by the National Assembly under Section 12(1) of the Constitution.
Falana and Ibrahim invoked historical precedents, including the abolition of the Anglo‑Nigerian Defence Pact and Nigeria’s resistance to external influence during the Angolan liberation struggle, to argue that Nigeria must confront its security challenges unaided.
While the preservation of constitutional procedure is not in dispute, the argument collapses when measured against the stark realities confronting the Nigerian State.
Sovereignty is not a ceremonial ideal; it is the capacity of a state to exercise control over its territory, protect its citizens, enforce the rule of law and maintain the monopoly of legitimate force. A state incapable of securing its highways, towns, schools and villages has already compromised the essence of sovereignty, regardless of historical precedent or rhetorical posturing.
For over fifteen (15) years, insurgent groups, bandits, and terrorists have proliferated across Nigeria, displacing communities, shuttering schools and rendering vast tracts of territory contested or inaccessible. This is not an abstract threat; it is lived reality.
Historical references to Nigeria’s role in Angola or the abolition of early post-independence defence agreements, while symbolically resonant, are materially irrelevant to contemporary exigencies. Those were external, geopolitical, and largely ideological contests. Today, Nigeria faces internal insurgency that imperils the very lives of its citizens. Past foreign resistance, however laudable, offers no guidance for a nation under sustained internal attack.
The assertion that Nigeria can defeat terrorism unaided is empirically unsound. Courageous as the armed forces have been, they remain under-resourced, constrained by intelligence deficits, logistical insufficiencies, and technological limitations.
Constitutional safeguards regarding the ratification of treaties and international agreements are valid and must be observed. Section 12(1) rightly requires legislative enactment for binding treaties.
However, advisory, training or intelligence‑sharing arrangements with foreign partners do not constitute treaties that automatically demand legislative ratification. Such engagements are widely recognised international practices intended to enhance, not diminish sovereign capacity.
Advisory deployments preserve command and decision-making authority, allowing Nigeria to maintain full operational control while benefiting from specialised expertise. To frame this as a breach of sovereignty is legally and politically myopic.
True sovereignty is demonstrated not through isolation but through the effective defence of citizens and territory. Only the living can debate sovereignty; the dead do not. When insurgents control highways, terrorise schools and occupy villages, the claim to independence is hollow.
The Nigerian State must prioritise operational capacity over nostalgic symbolism. Strategic cooperation with foreign partners does not equate to subordination or loss of constitutional authority; it represents responsible governance in the face of existential threats.
Empirical evidence underscores the urgency of this position. Nigeria today contends with a sprawling insurgency across the North-East, persistent banditry in the North-West and North-Central regions, and escalating militancy and criminality in other parts of the country. Entire communities have been displaced, civilian casualties mount, and state institutions struggle to project authority.
The cumulative impact is a nation effectively at war with itself. To insist that such a nation confronts these threats unaided is both reckless and detached from reality.
The invocation of historical pride and ideological resistance is rhetorically compelling but strategically irrelevant. The 1960s and 1970s were eras of external challenge; contemporary Nigeria confronts internal collapse.
Sovereignty devoid of capacity is abstract; sovereignty exercised through capability is concrete. Partnerships that provide intelligence, technical training, or operational advice do not surrender sovereignty; they enable the state to assert it effectively.
Ultimately, the defence of sovereignty requires results, not rhetoric. Nigeria’s citizens are at risk, and symbolic gestures offer no protection against bullets, explosives, or armed incursions.
The State must deploy every legitimate means to secure life and territory, including measured cooperation with foreign partners under its full authority.
Pride, historical analogy, and abstract independence will not restore safety or order. Sovereignty, in practice, is a matter of capability, not ceremony. Only a nation capable of protecting its people can claim it; everything else is mere rhetoric.
In this context, the joint statement, while constitutionally attentive, is legally and politically incomplete. It prioritises principle over outcome and symbolism over survival. A state confronted by 15 years of unrelenting insurgency cannot afford abstraction. Effective sovereignty is measured by the protection of life and territory, not by declamation of historical resistance.
Strategic engagement, disciplined operations and the mobilisation of intelligence, resources, and technical assistance are not betrayals but the exercise of sovereignty at its most rigorous and practical. Nigeria’s survival, security and sovereignty are inseparable and any discourse on independence that neglects this empirical reality is a luxury the living cannot afford.
•Aduwo is the Permanent Representative of the Centre for Convention on Democratic Integrity (CCDI) to the ECOSOC/United Nations. CCDI is a non-profit organisation with Consultative Status of the United Nations.
