Nigeria’s Non-Attainment of the Millennium Development Goals and its Implication for National Security
The IUP Journal of International Relations, Vol. V, No. 4, October 2011, pp. 7-19
Posted: 17 Jul 2012
Date Written: July 17, 2012
Abstract
This paper is built on the dialectical materialism framework of analysis and holds that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are an essential part of the United Nations global security architecture that is driven by the pre-positivist conception of conflicts in terms of natural causes rather than deliberate designs. But it submits that Nigeria is incapable of meeting the MDGs 2015 deadline, not just because of the goals’ systemic contradictions, but also because of the country’s peculiar domestic constraints. The consequence, according to this paper, is that the insecurity that the MDGs are designed to tackle still persists in Nigeria, nationally and internationally. Nationally, inter-ethnic and communal strifes are rife; while internationally, hostilities and mutual distrust persist along state frontiers, fueled by the cross-border operations of the Niger Delta militants and the subsistence of terrorism, drug trafficking, kidnapping and even human trafficking in the Gulf of Guinea region.
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