THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL THUGGERY ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND POLTICAL DEVELOPMENT OF NASARAWA STATE (A CASE STUDY OF LAFIA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA)

Over the years the activities of thugs have been legitimatized and powerfully backed by the political class and unfortunately in Lafia most of these thugs have metamorphosed to Kidnappers. This study is, therefore, meant to examine the implications of political thuggery on socioeconomic and political development of Lafia capital city of Nasarawa State. The aimed to identify the socio-economic and political factors that facilitate thuggery in Lafia Local Government Area and to examine the implications of thuggery on socio-economic and political development of Lafia Local Government Area, the study used Frustration Aggression theory to explain the subject matter. The population of the study consist of (267,353) with the sample size of (400) To achieve the above, both primary and secondary data were used. In the case of the primary data, (400) copies of questionnaire were administered to ward heads, youth leaders, women leaders, politicians, security officials and political thugs. Focus Group Discussions and interviews were also held with some thugs, community leaders and politicians aimed at complementing the responses from the questionnaire. The findings reveal that poverty, high rate of unemployment, high rate of illiteracy among the youth and families having more children that cannot be catered for by their income are responsible for the increasing number of thugs in the State. As a result these children have no good education, no proper home training, and no food to eat and even shelter. These conditions they found themselves make them more vulnerable to be hired as thugs to rig elections, to kill and to engage in other social vices in the society. The study recommended among others that Nasarawa State Government should employ the services of external team consist of people like Nelson Mendala to go round in Lafia to score politicians for the positions of, State and National Assembly members on the basis of what they have done for their people. Any one that scored less than 70% should be disqualified from contesting.