Nigeria’s Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa, has suggested that insecurity tends to escalate in the country during political seasons, attributing the trend to both internal collaborators and external influences.

Speaking during an interview on Arise Television on Tuesday, Musa said the country is engaged in a complex conflict against a determined adversary with ideological motivations.

“We are fighting a war and we are fighting a determined enemy, who is getting support from outside and has nothing to lose,” he said.

He explained that the nature of the threat makes it particularly difficult to contain, especially when insurgents are driven by extremist beliefs.

“The worst enemy you can fight is someone from within, somebody who has nothing to lose and to them, because it is ideological, they feel if they die they are going to heaven; if they kill somebody they are going to get blessed,” he stated.

Musa noted that insider collaboration has worsened the situation, with informants providing critical intelligence to attackers.

“These same individuals that people see as civilians are the ones telling them that these unit you have only twenty soldiers, so what they do, they come over 200 and because of the information they are getting from those informants or logisticians that help them,” he said.

According to him, the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) has also contributed significantly to casualties among security forces.

“Why we take a lot of casualities again, is because of IEDs. IEDs are planted on the ground like the issue of the commanding officer that died in Monguno, it wasn’t an attack, it was through an IED,” he explained.

He added that insurgents often rely on fertiliser components to manufacture explosives.

“Urea fertiliser is what they use so we banned from the north east and what happened? Farmers started complaining that they were not getting fertiliser and we told them look, we have to strike a balance,” Musa said.

The defence chief also linked spikes in violence to political activities, suggesting that some actors may be exploiting insecurity for strategic gain.

“The last time was about three bomb blast in a particular day. To tell you that those things were targeted, it probably has to do with politics because if you notice, anytime is a political year, it goes up,” he said.

“And why is that so? Individuals want to take advantage to make the government look weak or to show that there’s no need keeping the government,” he added.

When asked who might be responsible, Musa said, “Anybody who does not mean well for the country and there are a lot of them, both within and outside.” (Vanguard)