Dimensions and Manifestations of Spiritual Threats and Insecurity in Contemporary Nigeria

Abstract

The concept and practice of security or national security was based on state security protected through the amassment of awesome weapon systems and a large size of armed forces throughout the Cold War era (1945–1989) on which huge amounts of money were spent. Human beings were not only neglected within the period but were also decimated, oppressed, exploited, and suppressed, and a lot of money that would have gone into their security and welfare was pumped into armaments and war. The collapse of the USSR, a superpower, without war in 1989, and the humiliation of the United States by a handful of unarmed, angry Arab youths on September 11, 2001, despite the heavy armaments changed humanity’s security conception. This chapter advances human security further by focusing on the spiritual dimension of human and national security. It posits that the focus on physical security does not give the total picture of the security architecture of a person or nation. It identifies and discusses with empirical evidence and examples the dimensions and manifestations of spiritual threats to human and national security in contemporary Nigeria. These include ritual rape, ritual murder, yahoo-plus, cultism, curses, dream manipulations, violent ghosts, familiar spirits, and controlled prostitution. It concludes by making relevant recommendations to ensure that the state and its security agents are able to checkmate these new species of threats. These include new laws, upgrading of training of security personnel, and public security education in schools, churches, mosques, radio, and television.