Security Challenges and National Integration During Nigeria's Fourth Republic

The study investigated the challenges of security and national integration in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. The question of insecurity was not unconnected with the increasing ethnic rivalries, religious bigotry and political upheavals by some citizens who in parts of the country felt cheated as they were denied access to the common patrimony. The objective of the study was to examine if the primordial tendencies of various ethnic groups towards violence had posed any challenge to security and national integration during the Fourth Republic. The survey research design was adopted, and questionnaire served as the major research instrument. Taro Yamane formula was used to determine the sample size of 400 from a population of three million, nine hundred and twenty thousand, two hundred and eight seven (3,920,208). The instrumentality of purposive random sampling technique was also relied upon, while frustration-aggression theory by Dollard, Doob, Mowrer, Miller and Sear (1939) was adopted to substantiate the research. The findings showed that there had been effects of political upheavals on security and national integration during the Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others, that the Federal Government should continue to encourage and strengthen the measures that will check a repeat of political upheavals in the country; DSS, CCB, ICPC and EFCC and other anti-graft agencies were to be made more active in carrying out their duties to ensure that the upheavals that arose as a result of corruption are brought to the barest minimum, if not totally exterminated; and, finally, the Federal Government, as a matter of urgency was to re-orientate Nigerians towards religious tolerance, if the country must remain as one indivisible and integrated nation.