THE EFFECT OF POVERTY ON COMMUNITY SECURITY: A CASE STUDY OF MUSHIN COMMUNITY

  

Youths of Mushin community during a violent protest.

 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Poverty situation in Nigeria is precarious, not only in terms of income poverty, but also in terms of food poverty. Nigeria is already hanging precariously with greater percentage of its population of its population living on less than one dollar per day without any sign ofchange.

 Poverty and their effect creates serious consequences for the citizens and society. Individual and

societal aspirations for democracy, development, human rights, high standard of living are undermined by high level of poverty.

Pix: Olumide Agunbiade.

In the end, poverty is a major cause of social tensions and threatens to divide a nation because of the issue of inequalities, in particular income inequality. This happens when wealth in a country is poorly distributed among its citizens. In other words, when a tiny minority has all the money. In a community, poverty is a dangerous factor that can destabilize an entire community.

 It’s unquestionable that insecurity and crime ranks high among the effects of poverty, and those impoverished neighbourhoods or entire cities experience the same problems with uneducated adults and youths that nurture more unemployment and crime, and then leading to chronic, long-lasting poverty.

1.2 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Poverty is a cancerous disease which affects several millions of people worldwide but more severe in the developing countries such as Nigeria. Poverty is characterized by low per capita expenditure, under-utilization growth, and high rate of unemployment.

 Zeller (2004) notes that poverty is inherently a relative concept. It is relative in the sense of its dependency on many other factors. He stresses that the poor are heterogeneous groups, since poverty has many causes and effects on many groups of people.

There is strong relationship between insecurity and poverty in sub-saharan African. Much though not all, of the solution of poverty alleviation programmes in Nigeria depend largely on stimulating agricultural growth and curbing insecurity.

 Unfortunately,  violent and crimes has escalated in many communities across Nigeria and the major problem continues to be poor economy with its precipitation effects of inadequate public investment in human welfare facilities.

 Conceptually, crime can be seen as an infraction of both the basic principles of law and order and the norms of civilized behavior. No society is immune from this social problem but what differs is the frequency and magnitude of the situation and the response mechanisms to address it.

As part of human community, Nigeria is currently caught in the web of crime dilemma, manifesting in the convulsive upsurge of both violent and non-violent crimes. But the most alarming and terrifying is the present escalation of violent crimes and the barbarity, lethality and trauma the perpetrators unleash on the hapless citizenry across the length and breadth of the country.

 Notable in this regard are the rising incidents of robbery, assassination and ransomed-driven kidnapping, which are now ravaging the polity like a tsunami and spreading a climate of fears and anxieties about public safety.

The significance of  security to mankind cannot be over-emphasizedas the socio‐economic structure of any society or organization depends on the security system available in such society or organization(Oyegoke,2003).

Unarguably, poverty and unemployment is the harbinger of most crimes which leads to insecurity. A recent estimate put the number of Nigerians living below the poverty line at 70 per cent. Regarding unemployment, which has created available market for political violence and various crimes, recent statistics from the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) indicate that 12 million Nigerians are unemployed, this is not to mention those who are underemployed.

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