PRIVATE SECURITY ACTORS IN AFRICA: THE CASE OF NIGER DELTA & NORTH-EASTERN NIGERIA IN WEST AFRICA.

Abstract

Africa continues to be synonymous with a place of insecurity in contemporary times. This insecurity has met the parallel rise of private security actors. My thesis seeks to understand why private security services have become unavoidable on the continent. I argue that Africa’s insecurity problem is the effect of the colonial legacy of ethnic partitioning which has exposed incompatible differences and paved a way for an ‘us vs them' mentality in African societies. These divisions have been further deteriorated by bad African leadership practices leading to little or no trust in the State and its security apparatus. From my case studies in Nigeria, I find that the colonial legacies of ethnic partitioning, as well as predatory neo patrimonial tendencies of African leaders, have contributed to the lack of trust in the State and its security apparatus. These have further necessitated the need for the services of private security actors thus making them unavoidable in Africa.