Why We Feel Unsafe When We Get Rich? Review on the Empirics of Corruption, Oil Rents and Insecurity in Nigeria ()
Affiliation(s)
1School of Economics and Management, Xi’an Shiyou University, Xi’an, China.
2Department of Economics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA.
3Department of Economics, Sokoto State University, Sokoto, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
The empirical submissions that oil rents cause internal conflict have been
widely supported by many researchers but criticized on the basis that oil
dependence and conflict are influenced by other factors endogenously. In this
paper, we review the empirics and interaction between corruption, oil rents and
insecurity in Nigeria. Based on the
theoretical submissions of the “Resources Curse Thesis”, the paper argues that
Nigeria’s security challenges are more or less driven and triggered by
corruption and oil rent, and the fact remains that oil rents tend to affect all
economic activities, shaping the political system which certainly presents a reasonable explanation
for both economic and political “Dutch Disease”. However, we upheld the
proposition that due to corruption, oil is problematic because the unearned
income received by the government from oil rents leads to the neglect of other
key aspects of the economy especially peace and social security.
Share and Cite:
Chen, D. , Gummi, U. , Wang, J. and Mu’azu, A. (2020) Why We Feel Unsafe When We Get Rich? Review on the Empirics of Corruption, Oil Rents and Insecurity in Nigeria.
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
8, 141-153. doi:
10.4236/jss.2020.85009.