Nigeria’s Defense Regulative System and National Security: Implications of Arms Smuggling and Trafficking in Nigeria

Nigeria as a nation is battling with threats to its internal security as a result of the pervasive state of insecurity ranging from arms smuggling, trafficking and proliferation across the country’s porous borders, to insurgency, banditry, militancy, herdsmen attacks, and succession threats, among others. This study critically accessed Nigeria’s defense regulatory system and national security in curbing arms smuggling, proliferation and trafficking. The theoretical framework adopted for this study was Differential Association Theory (DAT) and Queer Ladder Theory (QLT). The paper adopted a descriptive research method and relied heavily on secondary sources of data from textbooks, journals, newspapers and the Internet. The study findings revealed that the factors responsible for arms smuggling, trafficking and proliferation are occasioned primarily by the weak institutional implementation of the legal provisions due to corruption, which also negatively influences other endogenous factors like porous borders, poverty, unemployment, huge illicit financial benefits that accrue to arms smuggling and traffickers and ethnic-religious clashes. The study therefore recommended among others, the need for the government to implement strategies to forestall insecurity in the country as well as the need for the promotion of social capital and welfare by actively engaging the nation’s scarce resources in making the productive sectors of the economy more viable, which should form the core responsibility of government. The views contained therein contribute to knowledge, as well, serves as a catalyst to further studies, given the number of references made for further review.