Introduction
While the banditry situation is seen as an internal issue, it has a significant influence on Nigeria’s exterior image. Nigeria’s assaults on government property, unarmed citizens, hijacking, and bombing make it seem reckless and ludicrous in the eyes of the committee of countries. To other nations, it seems as if the cult is being accommodated by the state and political elite.
The governing class’s seeming irresponsibility and failure to seek an ultimate solution and credible but long-term solutions to this dilemma generate an unsafe image of a nation feared by foreign investors and peace-loving inhabitants of other countries.
Nigeria has been deemed dangerous by the United States of America. Attitudes of Nigeria’s political elite and state must have contributed to this result in part. In reaction, the US threatened that it will reduce the personnel strength of its embassies in Nigeria. Indeed, a November 2011 congressional study warned that banditry posed a “growing danger” to the United States and its interests in Nigeria. This is another instance of an image issue.
The British state has responded with skepticism. (2012, The Times, p. 6). While it has not issued a formal criticism, it has not shied away from warning its nationals about Nigeria’s instability. Nigerians, on their part, have displayed a lack of trust in the governing elite. Saliu Lukman said, “The Nigerian government must be honest, transparent, and receptive to Nigerians.” (2012, The Guardian, p. 2). This was advise, but Chukwuemeka Ezeifa’s stance was more instructive. He said that “the rod must be wielded more vehemently, and the rule of Nigeria’s existence must be implemented” ( The Punch, 2012: p-2). Both viewpoints agreed that the administration was incapable of rising to the crisis’s challenge. This is a show of dissatisfaction with the Nigerian administration. This demonstrates the Nigerian state’s insignificance in this environment, as well as the government’s incapacity. Additionally, it exacerbates the global community’s anxieties in general.
Recently, the Banditry sect invited the Nigerian government and a few statesmen to a conversation, and the sect also established the meeting’s framework and location. The mail included several threats. “By sending this letter of invitation to our revered elders, we are demonstrating to the administration that we are not kidding with them, and we are expecting their answer.” The circumstance paints an image of someone who has been abused, fostered, and confined.
This partially explains the recent decline in the number of people arriving in Nigeria from western nations.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The study discovered that in the majority of situations, state military, police, and other security organizations are incapable of providing critical protection against marauders, robbers, and armed bandits. Individuals, communities, and government security organizations were forced to find methods and techniques of containing and regulating such situations as a consequence of such assaults by armed bandits. Failure of government security agents to protect citizens from incessant attacks by armed bandits may be interpreted as a breach of the government’s own part of the social contract, resulting in social unrest when victims become frustrated and their efforts are ineffective in curtailing and preventing further acts of armed banditry. In light of this, the following short and long term initiatives are proposed for inclusion in policies, methods, and means of combating cross-border armed banditry.
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