Militarised Security Responses and Human Security-Oriented Approaches to Insecurity and Civilian Vulnerability in Nigeria: A Documentary Comparative Analysis

Nigeria’s insecurity exposes the limits of treating security as the protection of territory and state institutions. This study examines militarised security responses and human-security-oriented approaches to insecurity and civilian vulnerability. It asks how the two approaches affect insecurity, civilian vulnerability and well-being, and how elite quality, democratic quality, institutional capacity and allocation condition their effectiveness. The study adopts a qualitative interpretivist paradigm and comparative documentary research design. Peer-reviewed studies, scholarly books, policy documents and reports were purposively selected and analysed through thematic and comparative coding. The findings indicate that militarised responses can constrain armed actors and provide immediate protection, but their civilian effects vary with accountability, civil-military coordination and implementation quality. Human-security-oriented interventions address livelihood, social and institutional vulnerabilities directly, but their effects depend on coercive protection and capacity. Elite quality, democratic quality, bureaucratic capacity and financial management emerge as integrating conditions linking security policy to civilian outcomes. The study recommends an integrated security framework combining proportionate coercive protection with accountable governance, civilian protection, targeted resource allocation and resilience.