By Okechukwu Nwanguma
At the 2025 Annual Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Enugu, Femi Falana, SAN, cut to the heart of Nigeria’s crisis. National security, he warned, cannot be reduced to bullets, barricades, and barbed wires while millions remain trapped in poverty, hunger, and despair. “A nation free from bullets but not from poverty is not secure – it is merely quiet,” he said.
That insight speaks to a fundamental truth: security without rights is brittle; rights without security are fragile.
I was struck by how his analysis mirrored debates I engaged in weeks earlier at the Pan-African Conference on National Security and Human Rights in Nairobi. My focus there was Nigeria’s digital space – where cybersecurity measures often clash with citizens’ rights to privacy, free expression, and dignity. Falana’s emphasis was on socio-economic rights; mine was on digital rights. But both underscore the same principle: security that ignores human welfare becomes repression, not protection.
Beyond Guns and Gates
Falana exposed the emptiness of a doctrine that treats human welfare as optional. Chapter II of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution lists rights to education, health, housing, and social security but declares them “non-justiciable.” As a result, they remain lofty promises without enforcement.
Yet, without education or income, civil and political rights become privileges for the wealthy while the poor are left vulnerable. That inequality, Falana argued, is itself a security threat. It breeds anger, alienation, and unrest. He urged lawyers and the courts to creatively interpret socio-economic entitlements as enforceable rights – linking denial of education to dignity or environmental degradation to the right to life. Public interest litigation, he reminded us, can expand these frontiers.
The Digital Battlefield
In Nigeria’s digital age, the same contradictions play out. The Cybercrimes Act of 2015 (amended 2024) was designed to fight hacking, fraud, and terrorism. Yet its weak safeguards allow provisions on “cyberstalking” to be abused against journalists and critics. On the other hand, the Data Protection Act of 2023 created the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) to safeguard privacy. But poor integration between cybersecurity enforcement and rights protection leaves gaps and confusion.
This tension is not abstract. In 2021, the federal government banned Twitter, claiming national security concerns. The ECOWAS Court later ruled the ban unlawful. Similarly, the 2019 Lawful Interception Regulations empower agencies to monitor communications but without strong judicial oversight, fueling public fear of surveillance. Citizens often see these measures not as protection but as repression – or even exploitation, as with the controversial 2024 cybersecurity levy imposed on bank transactions.
The lesson here is simple: just as physical security must rest on welfare, digital security must rest on rights.
Lessons From Across Africa
Nigeria is not alone in this struggle. Kenya’s 2018 Cybercrimes Act initially raised alarm, but its courts stepped in to introduce safeguards. Ghana’s Cybersecurity Act (2020) requires judicial approval before surveillance – an oversight Nigeria sorely lacks. South Africa offers perhaps the most balanced model: its Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) and Cybercrimes Act (2021) are overseen by an independent Information Regulator, which has built public trust.
These examples show that rights and security frameworks need not be in conflict. When harmonized, they reinforce each other, improve legitimacy, and strengthen compliance.
One Struggle, Different Arenas
Falana’s call to enforce socio-economic rights and my advocacy for balancing cybersecurity with digital rights are two sides of the same coin. Both insist that law must be a shield for citizens, not a weapon against them. Both reject the false choice between security and freedom. And both remind us that ignoring rights – whether in food, health, or data privacy – invites insecurity.
Recalibrating Nigeria’s Security Doctrine
What is to be done? Nigeria must harmonize its laws so that cybersecurity, data protection, and surveillance frameworks work together instead of against each other. Surveillance must require judicial authorization, backed by transparency reports. Independent regulators like the NDPC must be empowered with resources and authority to check abuses. Citizens must be educated about their digital rights, just as they must be mobilized to demand socio-economic justice.
At the same time, lawyers and civil society must press the courts to adopt purposive interpretations of the Constitution, making socio-economic rights enforceable. The NBA has a duty to lead, ensuring that rights are not merely aspirations on paper but living guarantees in practice.
In the final analysis , whether in the marketplace, the courtroom, or cyberspace, the principle is the same: security and rights are inseparable. Socio-economic deprivation fuels physical insecurity. Digital repression fuels civic unrest. A state that pursues security without justice undermines its own legitimacy.
Nigeria must embrace a holistic vision of security—one that integrates food and freedom, dignity and data, safety and rights. The true measure of national security is not the silence of guns or the reach of surveillance, but whether every citizen can live free from fear and free from want.
That is the only way to stabilize the Republic and make citizenship meaningful in the 21st century.
