National Insecurity Research Articles

A qualitative study to understand the barriers and enablers of access to diabetic screening services in Nigeria.

Nigeria in working to redefine its health care system's approach to diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening services needs to reduce obstacles and highlight the enablers to services provision. Due to the increased prevalence of diabetes, this has become increasingly necessary. A qualitative study examining the perceptions, practices, and experiences of Nigerian DR healthcare practitioners (HCPs) in relation to the facilitators and barriers of access to DR screening services. Mode of participant recruitment was on-line through e-mails by using snowballing method. In-depth interviews were used to acquire information from 6 DR HCPs (all ophthalmologists) at three eye centers in the three geo-political areas of Nigeria and at international center for eye health (ICEH) in London via on-line Microsoft teams. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis and all the steps applied to the data analysis process. Non-systematic screening, poverty, poor transport systems, insecurity, and poor motivation are key barriers to DR screening access in Nigeria while enablers include government participation through subsidized costs and remuneration of workers. Screening in communities, and using low-cost techniques are key to enable access. Other enablers include collaboration and integration between endocrinology and ocular units in terms of referrals, information sharing, use of intermediary carers, technology, man-power and health resource provision including low- cost services. A dearth of personnel, screening technologies, and resources, have an impact on the effectiveness of the DR screening services in Nigeria as well as social and individual factors, such as the cost of the services and national insecurity.

Women as Viable Actors in Conflict Resolution and Panacea to Insecurity Caused by Boko Haram Insurgence in Borno State, Nigeria

The basic objectives of this paper are to contribute to the discussion of security and the protection of women's fundamental human rights, gender and inclusion, and the relationship between gender and peace-building; to be of value for the general discussion on national insecurity, and more specifically to assist the ongoing process of achieving a lasting peace and conflict resolution in Borno state. Women living in northern Nigeria face a herculean challenge of overcoming direct and indirect violence. These include domestic violence, political instability, social inequality, and the threat of Boko Haram. Boko Haram is an extremist militant group that has been known to kidnap, rape and torture women and young girls as means of terrorizing the Nigerian community. Hence, from the beginning of the human era, women, based on their assumed tenderness, have been subjected to domestic and nurturing tasks. This is because the global society has assumed a patriarchal nature. To this end, the paper attended to basic issues of the study decolonizing and engendering conflict resolution frameworks to desired security and transformative peace, ascertaining a dynamic peace process and rights can be negotiated, protected and promoted, especially in Islamic-based societies which experience a significant political transition and sustainable peace in countries such as Afghanistan; and finally, drawing best practices to advance inclusive policies where fundamental rights are protected and to ensure women's meaningful participation in peace processes. This study adopted the social bond and feminist theory by attempting to explain the significance of women in the society. The position of the paper is that in the global society, people still think that women can do little or nothing, and it is very pervasive in Nigeria, especially when it involves issues of social development and security as perceived with regard to insecurity. This suggests that the involvement of women in the fight against insecurity and counter-terrorism in the global world has not been effectively utilized. Nigeria, just like many developing countries, does not agree with the popular parlance of 'behind every successful man, there is a woman.' The study, therefore, recommends that greater attention should be channelled toward women's involvement in the development process of fighting insecurity and strengthening national security.

Social Actors and the Language of Othering: A Corpus-Assisted Analysis of the Representation of Covid-19 in Selected Western and Asian English Newspapers

As of May 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused approximately 3.5 million deaths and 168 million confirmed cases worldwide. Unfortunately, this crisis has not only resulted in a devastating loss of human life but has also given rise to racism, national insecurity, and general xenophobia. This phenomenon can be understood through the concept of ”othering,” which refers to the exclusion of individuals or entire groups based on their ascribed or enacted identities. This study aims to investigate how social actors are constructed by selected Western and Asian English newspapers in relation to Covid-19. Specifically, it seeks to examine whether language of othering is used by different English users (West vs. Asia, inner circle vs. outer circle) in representing the 2020’s deadliest pandemic. To achieve this, the researcher has custom-collected six different newspapers: New Straits Times (Malaysia), The Straits Times (Singapore), Philippines Daily Inquirer (Philippines), The New York Times (US), The Guardian (UK), and The Australian (Australia). A simple corpus query language is used to analyze common nouns in the corpus, focusing on proper nouns and possessive nouns, which will be ranked by frequency. The semantic preference of the most frequent nomination strategy for social actors will be further explored through tagging and categorization of collocates. This study aims to reveal if any social actors were dehumanized or discriminated against through the language used in relation to Covid-19 across the selected Western and Asian newspapers.
 Keywords: Covid-19, othering, newspapers, social actors, corpus

National Security and Foreign Direct Investment in Nigeria (2005 -2022)

In the last decade, there has been an increase in national insecurity in the country, which has resulted in many people being killed, kidnapped, and misplaced. Despite different measures put in place by the government, national security has not been well noticed in Nigeria. As a result, this study empirically examined the effect of national security on inflows of foreign direct investment in Nigeria, covering the period 2005–2021. The study measured foreign direct investment using the net inflow of foreign direct investment, while measuring national security by the budgets of external defence and internal security. Control variables are gross domestic product and trade openness. Secondary data were sourced from the CBN Statistical Bulletin and estimated using an auto-regressive distributed model. The study found that both government expenditure for external defence and internal defence had positive effects on foreign direct investment, while only government expenditure for external defence was found to significantly impact foreign direct investment in the long run at a 5% level of significance. This implies that continuous expenditure by the government to combat national insecurity would ensure a serene environment, which would assure the citizenry's desire for national security. The study concluded that national security has a significant effect on foreign direct investment in Nigeria. The study recommends that the government ensure that the expenditure on both external and internal defence is well utilised and directed to the necessary quarters to reduce insecurity, which would increase the influx of foreign direct investors in the country. Furthermore, the government should also ensure that the armed forces and paramilitary squads are well motivated to increase their morale to fight insecurity so as to ensure national security and peace of mind for all the people within the country.

Free speech versus defence of the nation? The media as sources of national insecurity in Ukraine

ABSTRACT The media can cause concern in the context of national security: they are described as potential tools and targets of attack that can be “weaponised”, and as a space where “information war” is waged. Governments may try to block media that are deemed a security threat, but the rationale for taking such an action deserves careful consideration, given the tension between media restrictions and the democratic principle of free speech. This article scrutinises the security rationale for restrictions imposed by Ukraine on Russian and “pro-Russian” media from 2014. When justifying restrictions, Ukrainian officials highlighted the threat of media content both distorting perceptions of reality and weakening the foundations of Ukrainian nationhood. We, therefore, analyse survey data to investigate whether the use of the banned media was associated with variation in Ukrainian citizens’ perceptions of truth and national values. We find that the use of the banned media was linked to mistaken beliefs about the veracity of news headlines, both true and false; it was also associated with lower support for democracy in Ukraine (a key national constitutional value). This evidence from the Ukrainian case informs our discussion about the media’s impact on national (in)security and rationales for media restrictions in democratic contexts more broadly.

Theorising and illustrating plural policing models in countering armed banditry as hybrid terrorism in northwest Nigeria

Banditry constitutes about 40% of national insecurity in Nigeria. It is a composite crime manifesting in wanton killing, cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, levying of illegal tax on farming communities, sexual violence and trafficking of arms and drugs. Through qualitative and quantitative research methodology, this article attempts to theorise and illustrate policing models aimed at countering armed banditry in northwest Nigeria. Coordinates of attacks by bandits are georeferenced to show their spatial distribution and pattern. As Nigeria continues to experience the shocks of banditry, the national and subnational governments are providing counter measures to lessen the striking capability of the bandits through four distinct but complementary models of policing. The article offers direction on the policing imperatives for combatting armed banditry in Nigeria. It proposes a multilevel policing framework which encompasses the mainstream policing, hybrid policing and the joint task force models with the state police as the new layer on the existing security architecture. This is well suited to respond to the conceptual, practical and strategic dimensions of policing in Nigeria to combat armed banditry and other criminalities that envelop the country.

Curbing National Insecurity through Effective use of Language

This study investigated curbing of national insecurity through effective use of language. The study assessed the present state of insecurity in Nigeria, language as a panacea to the insecurity ill that plague our nation, Nigeria and the role of language in ensuring peaceful co-existence in the nation. The study adopted a descriptive research design of survey type. The sample size of 100 respondents which included lecturers and students was drawn from the population of 345 members of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology, Ikere chapter. The instrument for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire tagged “Language as a Panacea to Curbing Insecurity in Nigeria (LPCIN) Questionnaire”. The three research questions raised to guide the study were answered using descriptive analysis of simple frequency count, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The two (2) research hypotheses formulated for the study were tested using Chi-square (χ2) statistic of independent sample at 0.05 level of significance. Analysis of the study revealed that there was significant influence of language on the state of insecurity in Nigeria. It was also revealed that there was significant influence of appropriate use of language on the improved peaceful co-existence in Nigeria. The study concluded that the problem of national security is not that of the government alone but what every Nigerian should collaborate to ensure thorough effective and appropriate use of words of the accepted language communication. The study recommended that Nigerian government should create communication channels to effectively disseminate information, create awareness and give the people a sense of belonging and inclusion.

Local Cloud Computing Service Adoption in Nigeria: Challenges and Solutions

Cloud momentum seems unstoppable in Nigeria, as businesses and organizations in the country see less and less advantage in the slog of maintaining their infrastructure. The shift to the cloud in today's COVID-19 driven world has created an opportunity for investments to improve local cloud computing services. However, there are key challenges that must be addressed by the local cloud service providers in the country in order not to lose out to the foreign cloud service providers. This paper assessed the challenges to local cloud computing services adoption among sixty-seven (67) businesses and organizations in Nigeria. The research employed a non-probability purposive sampling approach. The surveyed data were obtained through an online form which was distributed via Linkedln. Descriptive and inferential analysis was used in analyzing the collected data via IBM SPSS software. Findings from the research showed the key challenges to include inadequate awareness of local cloud service vendors, poor innovation and local content, inadequate cloud infrastructure, local cloud vendor interoperability issue, national insecurity, shortages in skilled personnel, Service Level Agreement (SLA), security strategies, privacy, compliance terms, and requirements issues. Thus, adequate local cloud service offerings, skilled personnel, and the IT infrastructural backbone of the country have to be well established to increase the trust in local cloud computing, open up Nigeria to offshore markets while driving economic competitiveness and growth.

Impact of Insecurity on Nigerian Economic Growth and Development

This paper examines insecurity challenges and implications on business activities, economic growth and economic development of Nigeria. The study was designed as ex-post factor research, with time series data sourced from official and government publications; spanning from 2009 to 2022. The variables used for the study were sourced after adequate considerations of extant literature and objectives of the study. In meeting with the objectives of the study, we logically break-up the data into pre-high insecurity period (2009- 2015) and high insecurity period (2016- 2022). Four hypotheses were formulated and tested using t-test, f-test; and Cho-test was used to test the variance between the two time periods under study. The study found that insecurity hampers Business Activities (BA) but does not have significant influence on Economic Growth (EG) and Economic Development (ED) of Nigeria; and concluded that national insecurity must be of high consideration as business activities blossom in a secure environment, which ultimately ensures sustainable economic growth and development. We therefore recommend a synthesis of composite security management approach model and two-way approach model in addressing the ills of insecurity in ensuring Nigeria economic sustainability.

“Imitation (In)Security” and the Polysemy of Russian Disinformation: A Case Study in How IRA Trolls Targeted U.S. Military Veterans

Abstract Russian disinformation activities imitate divisive U.S. political discourse within a polarized social media ecosystem. As part of a multipronged response, U.S. citizens have been urged to increase their personal vigilance and to identify inauthentic messages, hence flagging foreign-made disinformation by studying its content. However, by applying Taylor's concept of “imitation (in)security” to a set of Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) Facebook and Instagram advertisements, this article explains why content-centered approaches to combatting disinformation need to be reimagined. Building upon imitation (in)security, we propose that the strength of the IRA disinformation campaign was not its ability to foist falsehoods upon unsuspecting Americans, but, rather, its uncanny imitation of prevalent themes, images, and arguments within American civic life. Our analysis of IRA-generated advertisements targeting U.S. military veterans demonstrates how IRA “trolls” were imitating American communication patterns to amplify existing positions within a deluge of messages marked by polysemy. Our analysis suggests readers should be less concerned by such Russian-made imitations than was suggested in much of the breathless 2016 post-election coverage, for the traction of such disinformation hinges on domestic crises and injustices that long predate Russian interference. Pointing to foreign-made social media content stokes a sense of threat and crisis—the essence of national insecurity and a main objective of the IRA's efforts—yet our actual security weaknesses are homemade.

“Still Holding the Pipa to Hide Half Her Face”: Visions of Bai Juyi’s ‘Song of the Pipa’ in Republican China

Abstract A recurring subject of manhua (comics) in Republican-era China was the pipa player, a woman whose genealogy can be traced back to the disgraced and displaced subject of Bai Juyi’s ninth-century poem Pipa xing (Song of the pipa). This paper traces this woman’s development from her conception in Pipa xing and follows her as she is re-imagined by modern poets and manhua artists into a variety of figures, from scorned politicians to modern feminine archetypes. This paper argues that these artists leverage her precarity and anachronism to portray contemporary political turmoil and national insecurity, as they look back at China’s imperial past and towards its uncertain future. And instead of reifying the distinction between the prosody of classical and New Poetry, this paper finds classical poetics not only in poems themselves, but also in tropes and images that reveal how poets and poetry reckoned with the rise of new media.

Investing in Human Resources as a Platform for National Security in Nigeria: The Role of Social Studies Education

Nigeria’s political elites have toyed with the pathway to Nigeria’s national security, and therefore, placed Nigeria and her people on a perpetual developmental backwardness. Sadly, Nigeria, the supposed giant of Africa has been weighed down by the challenge of corruption, as well as insecurity. The deficiency in human capital development in Nigeria today is exerting untold pressure on her national development plans, policies and programmes. The development of human resource s isindispensable for the developmental strive of any continent or nation. Hence, the inability of the Nigerian state to fully actualize her human capital development drive calls for concern. The aim of this article, therefore, is to investigate into the indispensability of investing human capital development in fostering national security in Nigeria. Social studies education is an instrument for renewal of some societal practices that constitute obstacles to national security and development. Consequently, this paper will examine the place of social studies education in the context of Nigeria for national security. The roles social studies education could play in producing good citizens, who could assist in no small measure in tackling this complex problem of national insecurity in Nigeria were discussed. In conclusion, the paper has logically established the fact that, there is significant correlation between social studies education and human capital development. Finally, workable recommendations are given, among them is that government should lay more emphasis on the teaching of social studies at all levels of its educational system - to foster moral development in youths
 Keywords: National Security, Human Resources, Social Studies Education, Investment.

Cartography And Management Of Food-Insecure Areas In Garut

The objective of this research was to investigate the situation of food insecurity and its handling in Garut District, West Java, Indonesia. An analysis based on the national food insecurity indicators and the Food Insecurity Atlas has identified food-insecure areas, resulting in nine indicators reflecting the three pillars of food security, i.e.,food availability, access to food, and use of food. Results on food insecurity status show that priority 1 belongs to the nine villages under study 1. The local government has imposed five policies to address food insecurity, i.e., 1) setting up a monthly program called the Food and Nutrition Security System, 2) direct assistance in the form of food staples, 3) developing the Food Security and Vulnerability Atlas, 4) improving food access, and 5) developing self-sufficient villages. These attempts are quite efficient. After three years, more areas have moved from Priority 1 to Priority 3 in food security.

National Insecurity and the Non-Integration of Indigenous Intelligence Gathering Systems

The question of insecurity in Nigeria today as one of the factors accounting for the underdevelopment of the country has taken the centre stage in national discourse, at the level of the government and the society in general. While the military and security forces are being over stretched in terms of their strength and capabilities, the government has remained fixated with their official policy of deploying the military and security forces to troubled areas at their own peril. Ironically, the military and security forces have evidently not been able to proactively contend with such crises, criminality and conflict. They have often lagged behind in their responses to such situations, due to inadequate intelligence. Through the qualitative-descriptive method, with data from secondary and tertiary sources, the paper discusses the lacuna in the intelligence gathering system of the Nigerian armed forces and security services which has been constraining them from effectively securing the country. The paper argues that the top-down approach to such situations of crisis, criminality and conflict by the Nigerian armed forces and security services is what has been responsible for their ineptitude. The paper recommends that a bottom-up approach should be the norm in intelligence gathering in the various situations of crises, criminality and conflict, this is because the secret information from the internal forces, feelers and agents in such situations of crises, criminality and conflict is the critical factor in intelligence gathering.

Panic, Don’t Panic: Poetry and Affective Politics from the Cold War to Trump

In both the Cold War and the Trump era, the fear of future threat has provided politicians with a carte blanche for generating anxiety among American citizens. This essay examines how poets in each era responded to the political cultivation of private insecurity, a practice that proliferates the fear, the anxiety, and the weariness that are grounded in the possibility of future threat. For many poets of both the Cold War and Trump eras, political critique lies not in the desire to express rational opposition to irrational policies but in the ability to make tangible the affective consequences of the cultivation of national insecurity.

“Otherness” in America: Hemingway, Hungarians, and Transnationalism

Volatility regarding negotiated subject positions features prominently in Hemingway’s works. Yet, his portrayal of Hungarians in the vignette of Chapter VIII and the short story entitled “The Revolutionist” (both found in the collection of In Our Time, 1925) underlines 1920s America’s unwillingness to modify preconceived stereotypes about the “other.” Both stories have attracted considerable attention among scholars who have analyzed these texts from such perspectives as political ideology and the arts. Aiming to fill a gap in literary criticism, I shall examine the narrative representation of stereotypical approaches to the Hungarian minority with emphasis on societal expectations set by white, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class men in the United States during the 1920s. The values they propagated in society illustrate that the Roaring Twenties was an openly discriminatory decade in which ignoring and sometimes literally attacking the “other” for deviating from the prescribed norms of the era was acceptable. Anxiety about the “other” uncovers a great deal of national insecurity; America’s battle with foreigners merges into a battle with itself.

Anti-Asian Hate Crime During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Exploring the Reproduction of Inequality

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is believed to have emerged in Wuhan, China in late December 2019 and began rapidly spreading around the globe throughout the spring months of 2020. As COVID-19 proliferated across the United States, Asian Americans reported a surge in racially motivated hate crimes involving physical violence and harassment. Throughout history, pandemic-related health crises have been associated with the stigmatization and “othering” of people of Asian descent. Asian Americans have experienced verbal and physical violence motivated by individual-level racism and xenophobia from the time they arrived in America in the late 1700s up until the present day. At the institutional level, the state has often implicitly reinforced, encouraged, and perpetuated this violence through bigoted rhetoric and exclusionary policies. COVID-19 has enabled the spread of racism and created national insecurity, fear of foreigners, and general xenophobia, which may be related to the increase in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic. We examine how these crimes – situated in historically entrenched and intersecting individual-level and institutional-level racism and xenophobia – have operated to “other” Asian Americans and reproduce inequality.

English

Studies and institutional reports have argued that youth violence is a precursor to national insecurity in Nigeria. Contrary to youth as an agent of transformation and national development, their recurrence in violent conflicts has continued to undermine the national security of the country. Such security backlash is further conflated by the protracted Boko Haram insurgency which has ruptured the nation building, but also tugs on the sovereignty of the Nigerian state. While these phenomena have increasing implication for the country stability; youth violence across various communities in Lagos State, a megacity; the economic nerve centre of the country has further put Nigeria’s economic prosperity and security architecture in dire strait. This security deficit is the prevalence of anomie and lawlessness in Ikorodu Local Government area of Lagos State, instigated by the crisis of urbanisation, land grabbing, demographic pressure and cultism. This study examines youth violence and the failure of the Nigerian state, with focus on Onyabo Vigilante Groups (OVG), as a crucial actor in curtailing violence in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State. Using a qualitative method as a frame of analysis, the study argues that the lack of state capacity, resulting in unemployment, abject poverty and poor socio-condition is responsible for the widespread incidences of youth violence instigated by land grabbing and cultism in Ikorodu Local Government. The study concludes on the imperative of overhauling the security architecture of the state, to recognise vigilante groups legally and institutionally, as a complementary security outfit to the Nigerian police. More importantly, questions of poverty, unemployment and social dislocation should be put on the front burner of government developmental agenda to forestall hopelessness and frustration which are frequent condition breeding violence in Nigeria.             Key words: State, vigilante, youth violence, Onyabo, Ikorodu.

Nigeria’s Hegemony in West Africa – Counting the Cost

The aim of this study is to examine Nigeria’s hegemony in West Africa and its implications on Nigeria’s national core development programmes. This is done via critical examination of some selected regional and national development indicators with a view to fi nd ways of improving the overall national performance as signifi cant contribution to regional development. On political impact, the study found that successive Nigerian governments were engrossed in unprecedented national corruption than development, diverting billions of dollars meant for national development in the guise of national security, regional peacekeeping, humanitarian intervention and socio-economic development of the sub region. The consequences of such political ineptitude were widespread: failed leadership, clientelism, rentierism, political apathy, escalating national insecurity, wide-spread poverty and unemployment and poor macroeconomic development. Overall, the study opines that Nigeria should shore up greater commitment and responsibility towards her national and human capital development, massively improve the infrastructure, reorientate both military and political elites to ensure integral national growth, overhaul her regional and foreign policy goals to meet her national interest goals as true catalyst for regional development.

POVERTY, UNEMPLOYMENT AND NATIONAL INSECURITY IN NIGERIA’S FOURTH REPUBLIC

Sadly and ironically, Nigeria is regarded as a nation flowing with milk and honey, yet the majority of the citizens live in abject poverty. Faulty development policies pursued since 1999 have left the people pauperized and decimated. These are manifested in increasing poverty, unemployment, poor housing facilities, diseases, the total collapse of social security, poor medical care, etc. Poverty and unemployment as social problems have remained the major development challenges in Nigeria today. It is against this backdrop that this paper examines the relationships between poverty, unemployment and national insecurity in Nigeria’s fourth republic. Using the theory of causality, the paper argued that economic deprivation, frustration, and desperation among the youths especially the lower-class are the underlying causes of national insecurity in Nigeria today. Therefore, the way out of insecurity that has pervaded our nation rest on the need to address the issues of economic poverty and social deprivation of the masses by increasing the basic necessities of life.