SECURITY CHALLENGES AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

The general aim of this paper was to evaluate the economic consequences of insecurity in Nigeria with the huge expenditures on security and defense as a relevant proxy for insecurity; while the specific objectives the study were to examine effects of insecurity on food production with agricultural GDP as a proxy, poverty level with per capita income as a proxy and economic development with annual expenditures on education as a proxy. Annual data on agricultural GDP, expenditures on security and defense, expenditures on education and income per capita sourced through National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Annual Reports and Accounts, and various other sources were used for this study. Inferential statistical tool of analysis for this study was Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique. The result of the analysis indicated that expenditures on defense and security had no significant effect on education. Security situation in Nigeria, annual expenditures on security and defense as a proxy had significant negative effect on food production, agricultural GDP as a proxy. Security situation had significant negative effect on poverty level in Nigeria with income per capita as a proxy for poverty. Implications of the findings: the negative effect of the security situation in Nigeria on agricultural production implies that if insecurity is not combated may result in food hunger and frustrate Nigeria from accomplishing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of zero hunger in 2030 among other implications