ISSN: 2321-8819 (Online) 2 348-7186 (Print) Impact Factor: 1. 498 Vol. 6, Issue 5 , May, 2018 35 Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 6(5) May, 2018 Cattle Rustling and Insecurity in Rural Communities of Kaduna State, Nigeria: An Empirical Study ABUBAKAR, Mohammed Bashir 1 1 Department of Sociology, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria Prof. Dr. Rohana Bt Yusof 2 and Dr. Talib, Azlizan 3 1,2, &3 School of Government, College of Law, Government and International Studies Universiti Utara, Malaysia Corresponding Address: mohbash2003@gmail.com +2348036866154 Abstract Existing data on the level and magnitudes of insecurity in rural communities, Nigeria discloses an increase over time, which creates serious threat to lives and properties, hampers business activities. This rising upsurge of insecurity led by cattle rustling has remained unabated nonetheless has assumed a dangerous dimension which is threatening the corporate being of the country as one geographical entity. This study is on the nature of cattle rustling and its consequences on security in the rural communities of Kaduna State. The study was empirical in nature, qualitative data were collected using in-depth interviews. Findings shows that cattle rustling has caused serious havoc in the rural communities in terms of loss of lives, psychological fear migration, and organised crime which culminated to insecurity. The study recommends that government responsiveness and co-opting community members in the security of the area will go a long way in solving the lingering insecurity in the study area. Keywords: cattle rustling, herdsmen, Insecurity, organised crime Introduction The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria specifically states that “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”. Regrettably, government on this constitutional responsibility has not live up to expectations. The government has failed to secure a safe atmosphere for lives, properties and the conduct of economic activities. The disturbing state of insecurity in Nigeria has pave ways to an increase in crime rate in the country. The most disturbing and apparent security threatened crimes are terrorism, kidnapping, cattle rustling, conflict etc. Cattle rustling which is the focus of this research have become one of the major security threats affecting Nigeria today, because of the prevalents of the menace there is hardly a week or month without information on the Nigerian newspapers on an attack(s) made by cattle rustlers. For this reason, Saleh (2015) opined that cattle rustling has developed to a threat to the existence of rural communities in Nigeria, and Kaduna State in particular because of its frequency. Furthermore, Uji, (2016) relates the activities of cattle rustlers to that of the dreaded terrorist groups like the Boko- haram, Taliban, and Al-Shabaab. Furthermore, the threat is also associated with rising upsurge of violence in northern parts of the Nigeria, as established in the phenomenon of herder/farmer conflicts (Okoli, and Atelhe, 2014). This shows that the level of the insecurity post by cattle rustling is enormous in Nigeria and Kaduna State to be specific. Recently, the menace of cattle rustling in Nigeria has become a form of substantial village raids, whereby rural communities are recurrently attacked, raped and steal any available items that go beyond stock theft. These types of attack have become prevalent in the three geo-political zones of the northern parts of country (Okoli & Okpaleke, 2014). Insecurity in Nigeria has reached a level were even those who are shouldered with the responsibility of protecting lives and properties of Nigerians find it difficult to sleep with all their eyes closed. This is obvious with the number of Nigerian security personnel killed day in day out by criminals nationwide. For instance, on the 5 th of April 2018 armed robbers attacked banks in Offa, Kwara State killing 17 people including nine police officers (Babalola & Yahaya, 2018). This has insecurity has clearly showed lack of responsiveness from the part of government. According to Attah (2014), insecurity is “the state of anxiety or fear stemming from a concrete or alleged lack of protection.” It refers to lack or inadequate freedom from danger. This definition reflects physical insecurity which is the most visible form of insecurity, and it feeds into many other forms of insecurity such as economic and social security. In this paper, insecurity is conceived as a situation where human and national security of a state is compromised and exacerbated by weak or poor economic, military and/or human resource development conditions. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by UUM Repository