The Paradox оf Force: A Qualitative Analysis оf Armed Banditry аnd its Implications for Nigeria's National Security (2010–2025)

Abstract

This study evaluates the compounding problem of armed banditry and its systemic implications for Nigeria's national security architecture from 2010 to 2025. Adopting a qualitative methodological approach, the study relies on the critical interrogation of primary policy documents, legislative frameworks, institutional statements, and reputable secondary academic and conflict databases, including the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The analytical framework is grounded in a robust integration of Human Security Theory and Failed State Theory, exploring the structural interlock between socio-economic marginalization and the erosion of the state's monopoly on the legitimate tools of coercion. The qualitative findings indicate that chronic structural deprivations—characterized by localized poverty, youth underemployment, and systemic educational deficits—act as primary recruitment catalysts for criminal enterprises. Concurrently, institutional weaknesses, porous border networks across the Sahelian axis, and corrupted security intelligence pipelines have transformed rural cattle rustling into a highly sophisticated, transnational kidnapping-for-ransom economy. The study highlights a critical national security paradox: despite a 220 percent expansion in defense budgetary allocations over the evaluated timeline, civilian fatalities and internal displacement patterns have accelerated significantly, indicating deep-seated operational leakages, fragmented strategic coordination, and a critical neglect of non-kinetic intervention pathways. The paper concludes that purely force-driven, kinetic military initiatives yield only unsustainable, ephemeral security gains. Consequently, it recommends an integrated, structural paradigm shift prioritizing community-centric policing frameworks, cross-border intelligence synchronicity, targeted socio-economic inclusion policies, and the rehabilitation of ungoverned spaces as the only viable pathways toward a resilient national peace.