The Determinants of Terrorism in Nigeria

Abstract Nigeria has been ravaged by terrorist activities which has made the country unsafe for Nigerians and foreign investors. The motivation of this study arises from the dearth of research applying quantitative empirics to the determinants of terrorism in a specific country. To achieve this goal, vector autoregressive (VAR) model was applied using data from Global Terrorism Database (GTD), International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) data, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) data, and Transparency International. Stata 13 software was used for estimation. The results show that ethnic violence, absence of good governance, presence of corruption, and rises in military expenditure are part of the causes of terrorism in Nigeria. It is, therefore, recommended that internal security should be maintained to minimize the occurrence of ethnic violence and ethnoreligious biases (sentiments) in the discussion of issues concerning Nigeria. Also, politicians should stop the proliferation of arms, as this will cease the violent reactions before and after elections. Finding lasting solutions to corruption using constitutional means will improve the quality of governance, which will improve the welfare state of the people and reduce restiveness.