Rising Insecurity and Its Implications on Sustainable Development in Nigeria

Abstract

This study focuses on the rising insecurity and its implications on sustainable development in Nigeria. Undoubtedly, Nigeria has enormous security challenges owing to the prevalence of political, economic, social, cultural and ethnic crises right from when it became independent and sovereign state till date. The hope that the situation will improve someday has always been dashed with the deepening, intensification, escalation, exacerbation, spread and increasing prevalence of insecurity cases across the length and breath of the nation on a weekly or daily basis. Hence, the issue of security promotion should not be treated with levity. This is because without security, local, state and national development cannot be achievable, even the individuals, families, communities and the entire nation cannot make any meaningful development not to talk of sustaining it. The study reveals that family neglect, unemployment, corruption, poverty, leadership debacle, religious intolerance, ethnicity, etc, are responsible for this malady. It also discusses how insecurity has negatively affected all the sectors of the economy, individuals/groups and the entire nation at large. It is against this background that this paper recommends that every Nigerian both the government and the governed must sincerely look inward in order to resolve amicably some of the factors responsible for this problem of insecurity politically through the provision of employment opportunities, poverty reduction strategies, fairness, equity and justice, creating enabling environment, among other things. The study adopts the main tenets of structural-functionalism theory as the theoretical framework to analyze this work while it utilizes secondary sources of data with content analysis as its methodology. Keywords: Security, Insecurity, Development, Sustainable Development and Nigeria. DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/11-23-04 Publication date: December 31 st 2021