CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

After independence, majority of countries neglected rural development and concentrated on the development of urban areas which to them are first point of contact of any nation. It was only in the wake of outbreaks of famine and various diseases which challenged the living condition of the urban dwellers that governments took up this subject. Until the 1990s, rural development strategies were focused on the growth of a modern sector through recourse to fertilizers, improved seedling, irrigation and mechanization (Lacroix, 2011:15). Therefore, Olisa and Obiukwu (1992:iii) said that this remarkable shift from the trend of the post-World War II decades, especially the 1960s (the decolonization decade), during which economic theories and aid programmes focused on growth resulting from national economic development plans and the multiplier effects of massive capital investment. They observed further that it was tacitly assumed that once the national economy developed (featuring such indices as industrialization, modernized agriculture, and modern infrastructure) rural economy would automatically develop. Asian Development Bank (2014) asserted that rural development has become one of the major aims of various assistance/intervention programmes of both individual developing countries and multilateral institutions/donors. Over the past five decades, Nigeria has never been short of programmes and reforms aimed at alleviating the failing rural economy, livelihood, insecurity and other specific policies associated with poverty alleviation and rural community sustainable development. The Document of Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) at 50 (2010:618) illustrated that, majority of these programmes developed complications over the years. Since Nigeria gained her political independence in 1960, there has been a great impetus attached to the rural community development as a factor that advances the overall socio-economic development of the developing countries of the world outside ‘Development Administration’. It is this reality as highlighted by Alege (2005:55) that has made the government at different times to set up various programmes and specialized credit institutions in an attempt to transform and develop rural areas in all its ramifications and thereby moving rural dwellers from abject poverty and squalor to economic and social prosperity. He added that some of those programmes and credit institutions are yet on-going, some are moribund and others have gone with the regimes that initiated them. Ibietan and Oghator (2013:308) noted that successive governments have indicated desire to transform the country, be it in terms of provision of infrastructure, human capacity development and even in the realm of social cum political development. In this wise, Nigeria has experimented with several development plans from pre-independence era till date, yet the needed transformation has continued to elude its citizenry in spite of the robust plans. According to Omoyibo and Akpomera (2013), security is a concept that is prior to the state, and the state exists in order to provide that concept. Security is the prime responsibility of the state (Thomas Hobbes, 1996). The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria specifically states that “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”. Unfortunately, government on this constitutional responsibility has failed to provide a secured and safe environment for lives, properties and the conduct of business and economic activities. The alarming level of insecurity in Nigeria has fuelled the crime rate and terrorists attacks in different parts of the country, leaving unpalatable consequences for the nation‟s economy and its growth. To address the threat to national security and combat the increasing waves of crime the federal government in the 2013 budget made a huge allocation to security, and the national assembly passed the Anti-Terrorism Act in 2011 (Ewetan, 2013). Despite these efforts, the level of insecurity in the country is still high, and a confirmation of this is the low ranking of Nigeria in the Global Peace Index (GPI, 2012). Despite the plethora of security measures taken to address the daunting challenges of insecurity in Nigeria, government efforts have not produced the desired positive result.This has compelled the Nigerian government in recent time to request for foreign assistance from countries such as USA, Israel, and EU countries to combat the rising waves of terrorism and insecurity. Amidst the deteriorating security situation in the country, Nigeria is also confronted with daunting developmental challenges which pose serious threat to socio-economic development. These developmental challenges include endemic rural and urban poverty, high rate of unemployment, debilitating youth unemployment, low industrial output, unstable and deteriorating exchange rate, high inflation rate, inadequate physical and social infrastructure, very large domestic debt, and rising stock of external debt (Ewetan, 2013) According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria‟s unemployment rate increased to 23.9 percent in 2011 compared with 21.1 per cent in 2010 and 19.7 per cent in 2009. The country has a youth population of 80 million, representing about 60 per cent of the total population with a growth rate of 2.6 per cent per year, and the national demography suggests that the youth population remains vibrant with an average annual entrant to the labour force at 1.8 million between 2006 and 2011. In 2011, 37.7 per cent of Nigerian were aged 15-24 years and 22.4 per cent of those between ages 25 and 44 were willing to work but did not get jobs. The current level of social insecurity is alarming and unacceptable. Insecurity & Underdevelopment In Nigeria, it is important we understand the standard meaning of the word: security. Security is defined differently by various academic and social disciplines according to their uses, understandings and perceptions. But commonly, security means: safety; freedom from risk or danger; freedom from doubt, anxiety, fear or want. It also means confidence or something that gives or assures safety. It further means a sense or feeling of being secured. Traditionally, security is simply defined as a duty of the government to ensure that majority of the citizens and their properties or belongings are secured at all times from the hands of malicious individuals and criminal entities. Section 14 (2) (b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 states: the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of the Government.

The above definition literally accommodates expanded notion of security or modern notion of security and moves it away from the old or traditional concept of security (i.e. protection of lives and properties or detection and control of crimes and punishment of the offenders or a notion of forming and arming by the State of policing bodies to control crimes and protect lives and properties). This is referred to as gun-culture or militarized security. Today, the word: security has undergone series of transformations. While the traditional notion of security is largely retained, which include State security, individual security or self-defense and collective security or community security (i.e. community vigilantism); security as a concept or an idea has further been expanded. It is now referred to as Human Security or Peopling Security.

The United Nations Children’s Fund reports that every day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under-five year olds and 145 women of childbearing age, making the country the second largest contributor to the under-five and maternal mortality rates in the world. A greater proportion of the population do not have access to pipe borne water, health care facilities, electricity and affordable quality education. Although Nigeria is a signatory to the UN resolution on the MDG goals the attainment of these goals by 2020 remains elusive and doubtful (Ewetan, 2013). Against this background, this study therefore seeks to examine the pertinent issue of national insecurity, a crisis of the Nigerian state, and its implication for Nigeria’s socio-economic development.

The main objective of this study is to ascertain the effect of rural insecurity and underdevelopment in Delta state Nigeria. But to aid the completion of the study, the researcher intends to achieve the following specific objectives;

1. To ascertain the effect of rural insecurity on the development of delta state
2. To examine the relationship between insecurity and underdevelopment

• To examine the impact of rural insecurity as a constrain to the development of the state

1. To examine the role of government in combating rural insecurity in Delta state.

To aid the completion of the study, the following research hypotheses were formulated by the researcher;

H0: the government does not play any significant role in combating rural insecurity in Delta state

H1: the government does play a significant role in combating rural insecurity in Delta state

H0: there is no significant relationship between insecurity and underdevelopment

H0: there is a significant relationship between insecurity and underdevelopment