National Security, A Panacea For Economic Growth In Nigeria 1981-2025

Abstract

Insecurity in Nigeria became more deadly and incessant following Nigeria’s transition from military rule to democracy in the year 1999.Over the years, there have been agitations over national resources which led to emergence of arm group in different parts of the country. For instance, the Niger- Delta miliants, independent people of Biafra(IPOB),movement for the actualization of the sovereign sstate of biafra (MASSOB), Afinefere etc. originated from the south and west while the north had its share of insecurity arising from activities of book haram, Islamic state of west African province(iswap),ethno religious crises, communal clashes, banditry, kidnapping etc. Insecurity according to Okoli, Oladipo & Onugha(2023) is a feeling of trepidation and unsafe that leads to wanton destruction of lives and properties in a society. It is a situation in which people’s lives and properties feel unsafe and businesses do not thrive well. Despite measures put in place by government at all levels (federal, state and local), insecurity continues to persist especially in the north eastern Nigeria.Okoli, Onugha, Oladipo & Chiwendu(2023) nations that aspire to grow develop should have a safe environment that would allow businesses and economic activities thrive well. One key determinant of economic growth of any nation is peace and security (Lious& Hilkyaa, 2018). The objectives of the study are to examine the impact of insecurity on socio-economic growth in North Eastern Nigeria and to examine the trend in economic growth from 1981-2025.The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative approach on socio economic implication of insecurity and anchored on the relative deprivation theory. The study also used descriptive statistics and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) to analyze data from 1981 to 2025. Results from the findings revealed that unemployment rate was high in 1992 and low in 2023 with values of 8.20 and 3.07 respectively, having a standard deviation of 1.42 which is closer to the mean value of 4.83. Government expenditure had a mean of 29.4, standard deviation of 37.02 with a minimum of 5.8 and maximum of 12.8 in 2009 and 2020 respectively. The study concluded that insecurity had a significant negative effect on education, government expenditure, inflation and poverty. Furthermore, the study recommends that the Nigeria government should improve on its kinetic and non-kinetic approach in tackling security matters and seek international collaboration on security.

Keywords: , ,