Proliferation of Small Arms & Light Weapons (SALWs) and Ethno-Religious Conflicts in Kaduna State, Nigeria (2012 to 2018)

Abstract

Hardly a year passes without a media report of deadly ethnoreligious conflicts in various parts of Nigeria which results in the wanton destruction of lives and property of the citizens. In the mainstream discourse, the use of small arms and light weapons (SALWs) has been variously attributed, as the trigger for the recurring ethno religious conflicts. However, this paper attempts to unravel, using evidence from primary and secondary sources, which builds upon the fragile-state theoretical framework of analysis, the phenomenal recurring incidences of ethno religious conflicts in Nigeria, with particular emphasis on Kaduna state where the phenomenon was most endemic, from 2012 to 2018. The study adopted a time-series survey research design. A multi-stage purposeful sampling technique was adopted in selecting three hundred and thirty-seven (337) respondents from the three local government areas in the study area. The data obtained were statistically analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Though our research question was: ‘did the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALWs) precipitates the recurring ethnoreligious conflicts in Kaduna state during the period 2012 to 2019?’; the findings, however, reveal that a multicollinearity of factors, notably, high-level of illiteracy, endemic poverty, unemployment, inequality and widespread drug-abuse among the youths, concomitantly explains the behavior of our dependent variable, i.e., the recurring ethno-religious conflicts in Kaduna state during the period 2012 to 2018. To mitigate and possibly annihilate this ever-recurring social anathema in Nigeria, the Nigerian government, should, as a matter of urgency, address the multifaced vices of poverty, unemployment, social and economic inequality as well as endemic illiteracy bedeviling the society in Nigeria in general, but particularly in Kaduna state.