Collins Nweke, an International Trade Consultant & Economic Diplomacy researcher, has endorsed ‘The Insecurity Triad’, a concept developed by Nigerian scholar-journalist and CEO of Sundiata Post, Max Amuchie, which conceptualises insecurity through three interconnected pillars: Money (Kidnapping), Land (Banditry), and Mind (Terrorism).
The endorsement is an attempt to redefine the Africa-Europe relationship from one based primarily on donor-recipient assumptions to one centred on co-security and strategic interdependence.
“We must stop treating Nigerian security as an act of charity and start treating it as a shared defensive perimeter.”
This comes amid increasing international visibility for The Insecurity Triad framework across academic, policy, and digital research spaces.
The framework is a strategic bridge between African insecurity and European security interests.
According to Nweke, the framework provides a new lens for understanding how organised insecurity functions not as isolated criminality but as an integrated system of extraction and destabilisation with consequences extending far beyond Nigeria’s borders.
He said Nigeria’s security crisis should no longer be viewed as a distant humanitarian concern but as a direct strategic challenge to Europe’s future stability, migration management, digital security, and economic transition. He thinks that “Insecurity in Nigeria is no longer merely a Nigerian problem,” “It is part of a wider Afro-European security continuum.”
The intervention is significant because it shifts the “Insecurity Triad” from domestic analytical discourse into the realm of international policy and diplomatic strategy.
According to him, analysts believe the commentary effectively reframes Nigeria’s instability as a frontline issue for Europe itself.
While calling for reframing Africa-Europe Security Relations, he said that for decades, relations between Europe and Africa on security issues have largely been framed around development aid, humanitarian intervention, migration containment, and counterterrorism assistance.
He, however, argued that the old paradigm is increasingly inadequate, adding that Europe’s traditional “aid-and-containment” model has failed to address the structural architecture of insecurity now spreading across West Africa.
Citing growing instability despite extensive European investments in Nigerian security infrastructure, he called for what he terms a “recalibration imperative,” urging the European Union to begin treating Nigerian security as a matter of shared strategic survival. Nweke identified three areas where the Insecurity Triad directly intersects with European interests.
According to him, the “Land” pillar — represented by rural banditry and territorial displacement — is systematically destroying agricultural livelihoods across large parts of Nigeria, triggering internal displacement that eventually feeds transnational migration routes toward Europe.
