Organized Crime, Poverty, and Drug Trafficking in Nigeria: A Sociological Perspective

The main thrust of this study is to investigate organized crime, poverty, and drug trafficking in Nigeria: A sociological perspective. The study avers that organized crime, poverty and drug trafficking has been identified over the years as not only a threat to national security in Nigeria, but also a serious social problem befalling contemporary society and globally threaten peace and unity. Regrettably, Nigeria was initially tagged as a drug-transit nation, gradually; that conception has changed in recent times, because of frantic and dogged effort by government at all levels to fight drug related activities to a standstill. The study argued that regardless of the counter efforts by NDLEA and other government agencies, sizeable amounts of drugs gain passage through the extensive seaports, airports and land borders in Nigeria on a daily basis. The objective of the study is to investigate the effects of rising organized crime, poverty, and drug trafficking on national security in Nigeria with focus on social problems and increasing damage of our national image globally. However, the study relied heavily on relevant theoretical and empirical literature from internet search engines, such as Google, journals, and text books, etc. The study adopted a quantitative research method. Functionalism Theory were explained and adopted as theoretical framework. The study reveals that the preponderance increases of organized crime, poverty, and drug trafficking in Nigeria is a veritable strong weapon for terrorism financing, social problems, corruption inducement, political instability and neglect to economic development. This has affected Nigeria international image and the negative effects are highly felt in the rising level of insecurity and drug related crimes in the country. Consequently, data for the study were generated using the secondary sources interpretative documents related to the organized crime, poverty, and drug trafficking in Nigeria. The study also identified a high level of institutional cum political corruption, poverty (unemployment) as among major contributing factors to the rising trends of organized crime, drug trafficking in Nigeria. Based on the discussion the study recommended among others: Urgent steps should be taken to increase capacity building and strengthening of Nigerian security agencies as well as good governance.