Paper short abstract:

The paper examines effective alternative structures that have emerged to meet unmet security needs of the people from the government, by the people, in African cities, using Nigeria, West Africa's oil-rich nation and Africa's most populous country as a case study.

Paper long abstract:

African scholars have long underlined the importance of paying more systematic attention to informal economic and political institutions in reorganizing African civilizations. This has led to a growing sense among researchers about the failure of Westphalian governance models to understand current African realities as a significant step forward, and it has encouraged indigenous scholars and security experts to look into countering Euro-centric criminological assumptions about how to solve Africa's crime problems. The project provides a narrative on the current security situation in Africa, using Nigeria, West Africa's oil-rich nation and Africa's most populous country as a case study, by looking into alternative structures, emerging to fill unmet needs by the people. The project resolved that a new approach to combating insecurity within Africa is emerging through the engagement of informal non state actors in security governance thereby forming a hybrid system. It further argues that the new actors, though equally effective in solving crime are not meant to replace the formal institutions instead their in-depth knowledge of their localities could provide benefits that could be beneficial for intelligence gathering, rapid response, and long-term observation for the whole system. The project suggests that for an effective and sustainable security system to be achieved in Africa, formal and informal security actors must work together to integrate informal crime detection and prevention mechanisms into formal policing techniques, resulting in a better approach that is more suited to African reality, particularly at the grass-roots level.