Cattle Rustling and Security Challenges in Northern Nigeria

This paper investigates the security implications of cattle rustling in the northern Nigeria. The study used secondary qualitative data to review the available literature that examined the security implications of cattle rustling in Nigeria, northern part in particular. It is the finding of the study that there are many security challenges in Nigeria and cattle rustling constitutes one of them. Cattle rustling is on the increase in Nigeria and it is more prevalent in the northern part of the country. it involves forceful seizure of herders’ grazing cattle, killing and even raping some of the family members of the herders. As a result, thousands of people are rendered homeless in Benue, Kogi, Niger, Bauchi, Katsina, Kaduna, Kebbi, Zamfara, and Sokoto States. The study concluded that cattle’s rustling is a security challenge as it has many negative consequences on the economic and social lives of the people of the Northern Nigeria. To fight the menace of cattle rustling and other internal security problems, such as Boko Haram and Niger Delta militancy, the government had set up some joint task forces, such as Operation Crocodile Smile, Operation Zama Lafiya Dole, Operation Salama, etc. However, the paper suggested that fighting problems like cattle rustling requires the use of social crime prevention, in order to overcome the factors underlying the involvement of youths in the criminal activity, such as provision of quality education for the children and decent employment to the youths with the ultimate objective of fighting poverty in the Northern Nigeria.