MASS POVERTY AS A CONCOMITANT FACTOR FOR INSECURITY IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This paper titled “Mass poverty as a concomitant factor for insecurity inNigeria” begins with an introduction in which an exposition on insecurity in Nigeria wasgiven. The study had a general objective as well as three specific objectives. A literaturereview on the nexus between poverty and insecurity was then performed. The reasons formass poverty in Nigeria were X-rayed followed by insecurity. Conflict theory was adopted inbuilding the theoretical framework for the study. This was followed by the researchmethodology. The study covered one state from each of the six-geopolitical zones and simplerandom and purposive sampling techniques were adopted. Both secondary and primary datawere used for this study. The sample size for the study was 22,240 respondents, with 3822 ineach state. The questionnaires were administered via Google Forms, and community groupswere reached through WhatsApp with the help of group admins. From the fieldwork, 98.9%of the respondents blame bad and corrupt leadership for poverty in Nigeria. 89.92% blamethe dependent nature of our economic and political systems for poverty in Nigeria. 94.2% ofthe respondents see the neglect of agriculture as being responsible for poverty in Nigeriawhile 92.1% of the respondents attribute a lack of basic infrastructure as being responsiblefor poverty in Nigeria. Additionally, 98.9% of the respondents agreed that good, visionaryand transparent leadership at various levels of government will resolve poverty and insecurityin Nigeria while 94.4% of them agreed that eliminating corruption in Nigeria will help toresolve poverty and insecurity in the country. Some concrete recommendations wereproferred at the end as panacea to the issues of mass poverty and insecurity in Nigeria.