Counter Terrorism Financing and Food Security

Purpose: The paper empirically investigated the impact of counter-terrorism financing on food security in Nigeria, spanning the period from 2004 to 2024. Amidst escalating unconventional security threats and their attendant disruptions to the agrarian economy, the research adopts a multidimensional approach to food security by disaggregating food security into three primary components: crop production (CROP), grain production (GRAINS), and livestock (LIVE). Methodology: Utilizing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds testing approach and Error Correction Model (ECM), the study examined both the short-run dynamics and long-run equilibrium relationships between counter-terrorism financing proxy by government on expenditure on military, police, custom and immigration on food security with population growth as control variable. Results and conclusion: The empirical results revealed a robust long-run cointegrating relationship across all three models, confirmed by significant negative Error Correction Terms. A critical finding is the "security-productivity paradox," where high-intensity military spending (LOGMIL) was found to exert a negative long-run pressure on grain production, likely due to the "crowding-out" effect on agricultural investment. Conversely, the results demonstrated that institutional security measures, particularly police and customs expenditures, yield a significant "peace dividend" in the long run, facilitating the expansion of the livestock and crop sectors. Short-run dynamics, however, were characterized by volatility, as immediate shifts in security enforcement (D(LOGPOL)) and trade regulations (D(LOGCUS)) initially disrupted production cycles. Overall, the study concluded that food security in Nigeria is inextricably linked to the efficiency of the domestic security architecture. While defense spending is necessary for immediate threat containment, long-term agricultural resilience depends on strengthening internal policing and trade facilitation. Implication of Findings: Consequently, the research recommends a strategic shift in fiscal priority toward institutional security, the establishment of sector-specific "Agro-Ranger" units to protect farming communities, and the reinvestment of security savings into rural infrastructure.