Beyond Bombs, Bayonets And Bullets

Asymmetric warfare is sort of a thief who enters a home not by the door, window, or roof, however by the pipes that run into it. It sounds not possible, so the proprietor spends his cash on the gate, CCTV, bulletproof doorways, burglar bars, and armed guards. Since the thief can not match the guards, he avoids them and comes by the one route no person is watching: the pipes that run into the home. In Nigeria, these pipes are the forests that run from the North West to the South West. In this text, I’ll clarify how synthetic intelligence (AI) may help us block them, and what we have to do as a rustic to boost our nationwide safety.

Where the pipes run

It is true that as a rustic, the majority of our safety challenges are land-based. At least, terrorists, bandits, and kidnappers haven’t began flying plane over states. They transfer within the thick forest reserves interconnecting states. This free motion causes a lot of the safety challenges within the nation. We can disrupt the motion of prison components by using AI. Before I clarify additional, there’s very important data I want to share.

The forests of the North West don’t cease at state boundaries. Reports identify a belt of forests that share boundaries throughout states, amongst them Kamuku (Kaduna), Kuyambana (Zamfara), Rugu (Katsina, Kaduna, and Zamfara), Sububu (Zamfara), and Dansadau (Zamfara). Kamuku is described as bordering Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, and Niger states. Niger State can be house to Kainji Lake National Park, which safety stories describe as the following hyperlink in a sequence working south.

Available data additionally signifies that this chain runs from Kainji Lake National Park in Niger and Kwara, by the Gbugbu/Babanla forest in Kwara and the Old Oyo National Park axis round Kishi, Igbeti, and Oriire, to forest and border areas in Osun, Ekiti, and Ogun, together with round Imesi-Ile. This data provides us a transparent thought of how prison components transfer freely and undetected by safety forces as a result of these areas are ungoverned areas.

What AI can do

This is the place we’d like AI instruments. The idea of nationwide safety has advanced tremendously, and trendy wars should not fought solely by alternate of bullets. The huge gamers on the earth order have sustained their relevance by advances of their assault and defence capabilities. Intercepting a missile midair shouldn’t be a guide enterprise: somebody, someplace is watching a goal a whole bunch of miles away, and when it comes inside radar vary, the press of a button can wreak havoc. Artificial intelligence (AI) is more and more extending that attain with out borders, and it really works each methods: to assault and to defend. So what are these instruments?

AI is a assist device. It processes knowledge and gives actionable evaluation. Let me use three examples to clarify this. When you enter a vacation spot into Google Maps, it research the map and visitors knowledge and provides you a roadmap to comply with. The second instance is that this: each wet season, forecasters warn which areas are liable to flooding after analysing flooding patterns over a few years. The third is in safety. AI instruments learn drone and satellite tv for pc imagery and flag modifications, comparable to a brand new camp or a freshly lower observe in a forest, in order that analysts know the place to look. In every case, the device takes knowledge and tells individuals the place to look or what to do subsequent. That is what we’d like in our forests.

Let me share an instance from Uganda. In Queen Elizabeth National Park, rangers of the Uganda Wildlife Authority labored with researchers on an AI system referred to as PAWS, quick for Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security. It studied information of previous poaching and labored out which components of the park have been almost certainly to be hit subsequent. It then instructed the rangers the place to patrol, and stored altering the routes so poachers couldn’t simply predict the rangers’ subsequent transfer. What stood out was that PAWS didn’t change the rangers. It instructed them the place to stroll, they usually nonetheless did the strolling. That is a template our lately commissioned forest guards can undertake of their operations.

Three suggestions

I’ve three suggestions on how the federal government can use AI to disrupt prison motion by the forests. My first suggestion is a safety audit of our forest reserves and their amenities. This can take the type of a presidential committee of researchers and expertise specialists with a mandate to review the reserves extensively, with a view to documenting their precise state and gathering the information of previous assaults held by the totally different safety companies, upon which an acceptable safety coverage might be constructed. What this does is give any AI device the information it must be taught from, because the information of previous poaching did for PAWS in Uganda.

My second suggestion is for the federal government to create anchor areas within the forests of the North West and South West. This can come within the type of siting nationwide tasks in such recognized areas to generate human exercise. A highway, a solar energy plant, a telecom mast or an agro-processing centre would carry employees, visitors and every day life to locations which have had little of it. What this does is disrupt these routes by making a authorities presence and a commensurate safety presence, and it provides us fastened factors the place AI instruments might be put to make use of, with the ability and community they want.

My third suggestion is the rejigging of the mandate of the Presidential Forest Guards Initiative, which in December 2025 graduated greater than 7,000-armed guards to deal with bandits, insurgents, terrorists, and different criminals who exploit our huge, ungoverned forests. Boots on the bottom are obligatory, however they alone is not going to resolve the issue. The mandate ought to require patrols to be guided by information of previous assaults and predictions of the place criminals will transfer subsequent, as in Uganda, drawing on the information the audit in my first suggestion would supply.

Nigeria is already shifting

In June 2026, on the Omniverse Africa 3.0 Summit in Lagos, General Christopher Gwabin Musa, the Minister of Defence, mentioned the long run requires us to enrich braveness with expertise, foresight, industrial functionality, and innovation. His message was easy and relatable: wars can’t be received by using drive alone.

Worthy of point out is Terra Industries, a defence-technology startup based in 2024 by Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka. It designs and manufactures autonomous drones, sentry towers, and unmanned floor autos. In February 2026, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) to arrange a three way partnership, a subsidiary of DICON, to provide and assemble drones, cybersecurity techniques, and robotics in Nigeria. In April, it unveiled interceptor drones, mine-clearing autos, and battlefield intelligence software program constructed for counter-insurgency. I’m glad Nigerian innovators are already shifting on this course.

The forests are our pipes. Audit them, anchor them with nationwide tasks, and let knowledge inform our guards the place to stroll. As issues stand, securing Nigeria is basically past bombs, bayonets and bullets, and that’s the thesis of my upcoming e-book, “Beyond Bombs, Bayonets and Bullets: Perspectives on War and Politics.”

Ocheja holds twin PhDs: Military History from the Nigerian Defence Academy, and Leadership and Public Policy from the University of Abuja. He specialises within the security-development nexus in Nigeria and the Sahel.