Nigeria: Does Terrorism Spring from Economic Conditions?

Abstract

Over the last half-century, Nigeria has become one of Africa’s three giants along with Egypt and South Africa, thereby gaining considerable clout on the regional and global arenas. It is Africa’s largest oil producer and recent finds ensure Nigeria’s significance in the energy market for the foreseeable future. But the country has an inability or an unwillingness to distribute economic resources and development programs equitably. The primary objective of this paper is to find out whether economic condition leads to domestic terrorism in the country, as the contemporary Nigeria society is engulfed by terrible acts of Terrorism. This paper uses annual data for the time period 1970-2016 and the multivariate regression results suggest that government expenditure hinders terrorism, whereas macroeconomic policies foster it. Possible reasons for the outcomes and the policy implications of the findings were discussed.