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The following paper is a systematic exercise to unpack the essentially contested concept of security, exposing its deep philosophical bases, for a better understanding of the concept by other social science theorists, who are intellectually involved in its interrogation on the continent of Africa. Largely relying on analytic and reflectively interrogative methods of social inquiry, the study sets two inter-related objectives. First, the study attempts to raise some philosophically fundamental questions that border on the metaphysics, the ethics, the epistemology, and the logic of security, which frame the underpinnings of the conceptual phenomenon. Second, the study makes a further attempt to cogently connect those philosophically fundamental questions to the praxis, practically showing how either security deficit or security gain could be promoted, depending on the answers supplied to the philosophically fundamental questions, in the contemporary African society. Drawing on the latter, the problem statement of the study is that there is substantial security deficit in the contemporary African society because the philosophically fundamental questions involved in the concept of security have not been seriously considered and conscientiously addressed. Therefore, the study concludes that it is when the issues framed in the questions are sincerely addressed that one could know what security truly is and the best practice for its promotion.

It is common knowledge that Nigeria’s internal strives and post-independence conflicts are worst than when she was under colonial dominance. As her different peoples pursue their perceived self-/group-interests, the nation is further polarized and degenerates into untold corruption and anarchy such that human life is threatened while true nationalism is elusive. This increasing polarization portends worst national outcomes. But, how can Nigerians be really united and act profitably for their nation’s human and material resources to actually benefit them? Past approaches to tackling this question adopted two political systems, federalism and democracy, among others. Sad enough, Nigeria’s lack of adequate moral considerations in solving her problems hindered these systems from yielding real results for it. Using philosophy’s conceptual and historical methods, this work adopts Kantian idea of moral obligation in addressing the problems of democracy and federalism in relation to the question of national unity in Nigeria.

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This present exercise in the philosophy of African law and practice adopts the methodologies of conceptual analysis, reflective argumentation, reconstructive procedure, and oral interview. It examines the legal reasoning in the justice system of the contemporary African state and submits that, because of the colonial legacy, the African legal reasoning is ontologically founded on empiricism and positivism. Therefore, such legal reasoning is not sufficiently capable of rightly addressing metaphysical realities and other covert social and political criminalities and wrongdoing, which may escape legal scrutiny and sanction due to the nature of the dominant legal reasoning in Africa noted earlier. Therefore, the study recommends that the methodology of African metaphysical epistemology should also be adopted to complement the dominant methodology of legal reasoning in Africa. This helps in revealling the truth of metaphysical realities relating to legal justice and other covert criminalities and wrongdoing in society. This African traditional method of truth discovery for effective justice delivery, a proposed addition to the dominant legal reasoning in Africa, invariably promotes effective legal justice and, in the final analysis, contributes maximally to the development of a balanced and reliable justice system in the modern African society.

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