Banditry and its Implication on Political Representation of the Northwestern Region of Nigeria

Abstract

The paper examined the implication of insecurity on political representation in the North-western region of Nigeria. Insecurity which has manifested in the form of banditry is caused by many factors central among which is the lopsided economic organisation of the country,the peasant's communities in terms of providing them with necessities of life, such as; access to education, health facilities, meaningful and gainful employment, and adequate political representation. This becomes alarming and a threat to political stability that serves as an implication for political representation. During this study, data was sourced from two major sources: the Secondary and the Primary Sources. The Secondary sources were from existing literature on insecurity and political representation while the interview method and Questionnaire were adopted as the main primary source of data. The questionnaires distributed were 360 of which 345 copies were retrieved, and 21 respondents were used for the interviews conducted, three from each state with a total number of 366 respondents across the two methods adopted, to generate data from the selected key informants across the region. In addition, descriptive analysis method was adopted to present and analyze data based on study's objectives.Within the theoretical framework of conflict, the study finds out that insecurity has affected the political representation of the region as a result there is wide gap between the elected representatives and the general public, in some areas the voters were disenfranchised as a result of security threatsto the voters and less presence of security personnel in the conflict areas which allowed the bandits to attack various communities at will. Based on the findings, the study suggests that the security architecture of the country should be redesigned to integrate the traditional security forces, adequate security presence in the rural areas, adopt an approach to tackling insecurity, synergy amongst the security agencies, and quick intervention from Governments.