Implications of Escalating Banditry on National Security in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the implications of increasing banditry on national security in Nigeria. The data for the study were collected using internet material, newspapers, journals, official reports, and books. A content analysis approach was adopted to analyze the study data. Findings revealed that there have been high incidences of banditry attacks on farmers, villages, communities, and highways resulting in kidnapping, killings, cattle rustling, displacement, loss of properties, and other security challenges in Nigeria. All these have further increased the level of poverty, unemployment, hunger, school dropout, food insecurity, and humanitarian crisis in the country. It also revealed the factors necessitating the rise of banditry in recent times which include, unemployment, weak security system, poverty, the porosity of Nigeria's borders, arms proliferation, illegal mining activities, and the presence of large ungoverned spaces which serve as hideouts to the bandits. It further revealed that Nigerian governments had made efforts to curb banditry through military operations, granting amnesty to bandits, setting up vigilante groups, and engaging private negotiators but all failed to curtail banditry, especially in the northern region of Nigeria. Therefore, to address banditry in Nigeria, the study recommends that the causative factors of banditry should be tackled by governments at all levels, starting from the traditional rulers, and local councils, up to the federal government of Nigeria.