Worsening Insecurity in Nigeria and its Implications on Governance and National Development

Abstract

This study investigates the worsening insecurity in Nigeria and its implications on governance and national development. Presently, Nigeria is bedeviled with increasing rate of security challenges. These ranges from militancy, terrorism, Boko Haram insurgency, farmer-herdsmen clashes, communal conflicts and religious crises, armed banditry, kidnapping, political and ethnic cleansing, ritual killings and so on. All these security challenges have brought more threats to the lives and properties of the citizens, compounded the menace of unemployment, poverty and hunger. Hence, this study seeks to achieve three objectives namely to identify the drivers of insecurity, to examine the effects of insecurity and to proffer measures to address insecurity in Nigeria. Strain theory was adopted for the study and Secondary data were generated and analyzed through content analysis. The study revealed that the following factors have fueled the increasing rate of insecurity in Nigeria: porous border, proliferation of arms, bad governance, marginalization, poverty, unemployment, religious fanaticism, inappropriate security architecture and weak security system. It also revealed that the rising insecurity has led to loss of lives and properties, displacement of people, closedown of businesses, increased rate of unemployment and poverty; reduced domestic and foreign investment, increased hunger and shortage of food in Nigeria. Based on the findings, the study recommended amongst others that jobs should be created by the government; borders should be securely guarded and good governance should be entrenched by the leaders. It concludes that the conditions of service of security apparatuses should be improved and the entire security structure should be re-structured and decentralized to enable quick responses to emergency security situations.