Social security as a panacea to kidnapping in south-west Nigeria: A theoretical review

: There are various security challenges facing societies around the world. Kidnapping is one challenge that undermines peace and stability in the globe. Kidnapping leads to death of victims, bodily harm, loss of properties and worsening economic conditions. To tackle kidnapping, social security is one valuable measure put in place. However, social security is bedeviled with challenges like corruption, mismanagement, lack of political will, ethnicity, bad policy and programmes. Therefore, this paper addresses the challenges of social security and kidnapping in South-west, Nigeria. The study intends to fill the gap created by shortage of scholarly materials to explore challenges of social security and kidnapping in South-West Nigeria. The data were obtained secondarily through the content analysis of peer reviewed journals, edited textbooks


LITERATURE SURVEY 2.1. Meanings of Social Security
As noted by Landis (2018), social security is the arrangement to relieve people in adversities and difficulties. This term, as applicable to the United State of America, is referred to as the financial arrangement made available to retirees and other vulnerable groups in the society (Piper, 2017). Social security, as described by Blankenship (2015), encompasses financial and institutional arrangement to assist those in need of assistance in all ramifications. It includes programmes and policies to assist those in adversities. The group of people in adversities could be the unemployed, out-of-school children, widows, orphans and other less privileged members of society. They are stricken by poverty, low education and poor access to social amenities.

Social Security Programmes
The following are some of the social security programmes in Nigeria. on monthly stipends. This scheme engages graduates` productive time, this prevent them from criminal activities (Okeke & Idoh, 2020). § National Directorate Employment (NDE): This scheme was established among other things to provide succor to unemployed youths. It has other schemes like technical training for the unemployed youths, secondary school teaching services and intervention programmes for those in dire need of employment. It was set up in 1986 by the former president Ibrahim Babangbida. As noted by Mose (2020), unemployment has been established as the major cause of criminal activities such as kidnapping. This scheme was established to provide skills for unemployed youths. The skills will lead to entrepreneurship for the teaming unemployed youths. However, the skills have not been able to achieve its objectives due to corruption, mismanagement and political instability. These factors resulted in the inability of the scheme to reach out to its genuine beneficiaries. § Trader Moni: It was stablished by in 2016 by President Muhammed Buhari. The scheme targets small scale traders and provides financial assistance for them to ease access to short-term loans with affordable interests. The scheme is under the management the Office of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Vice President, Professor Yemi Oshibajo anchors this programme. It distributes the allocated funds to the qualified traders on sight basis. It reduces the risks which artisans, traders and farmers are exposed to by providing soft credit facilities to this category of the vulnerable. § Farmer Moni: It was founded in 2016 by President Muhammed Buhari. Under this scheme, subsistence farmers are provided with financial support. This program mitigates constraints farmers are passing through. This encourages small-scale farmers into investing in farming. § National Insurance Trust Fund: This scheme provides avenue for financial security for people in the old age.
It is compulsory scheme for every employer of labour to register his or her employees under this scheme. This completes other empowerment schemes and creates avenue for social security in a given social structure. § Pension Scheme: Pension, as defined by Piper (2017), is the money saved to ease the cost of living of workers after withdrawal from active service. Every country has its operational pension scheme. In Nigeria, pension administration has experienced different changes. These are defined and contributory pension schemes. In the defined pension scheme, only employers of labour contributed to the pension funds. However, this system was frustrated by mismanagement and failure of the majority of employers to fulfil their obligations resulted in the failure of the scheme. Thereafter, contributory pension established to address the challenges in the old pension scheme. The Contributory Pension Scheme has its own challenges. Some unscrupulous employers of labour make the statutory deduction from their employees` salary without remittance to the concerned workers` pension savings accounts (Mill, 2016). § Agric-YES: This is Agricultural Youth Empowerment Scheme. It is a programme put in place to encourage youths to go into farming. This scheme, provides financial aids and other institutional support like farm settlement, training, access to agricultural input, agricultural market research, legal aids and other incentives to young farmers. Most state governments and Federal Government of Nigeria embark on this scheme as strategy for income security for the youths. The growing unemployment and its undesirable consequences like criminalities compelled government to embarked on this as a palliative measure to check the ugly trends (Nwagwu, 2014). § Technical Training: In a calculated attempt to address biting youth unemployment and wide spread of deviance in the country, governments at various levels established technical training schools. Some renew the existing ones to meet the challenges of skill acquisition for the myriad unemployed youths (Blankenship, 2015;Verchueren, 2020;Newa, Kathungu & Wagarga, 2021). § Challenges of Social Security Scheme: As explained by Kotiikaff, Solman and Moeller (2015), the following are the challenges of social security in Nigeria (Makuya & Salum, 2021). § Corruption: As established by Amnesty International (2020), corruption is using one's official position for personal interest and depriving other citizens of their rights and privileges. Corruption is one of the banes of social security system as a tool for tackling kidnaping. It prevents effective management of various social security schemes. Therefore, the social security schemes are unable to achieve the set goals. § Lack of Political Will: One of the hindrances to social security is unimpressive demonstration of commitment by the political leadership to end the crisis of kidnapping in a social system. Many social security schemes have been politicised. This impedes effective operation of the various aspects of social security scheme to achieve the set objectives (Makuya & Salum, 2021). § Poor Financial Management: Efficient financial management facilitates effective running of social security scheme. Prudent financial utilization will prevent wastage, this enables the scheme to realize its set goals within a given timeframe (Social Security Administration, 2021). Poor financial management undermines the sustainability of social security programmes. § Poor Supervision: In a bid to buttress the financial management of the social security scheme, the monitoring enhances assessment of the objectives of the scheme within a specified period of time. In the process of monitoring, any shortcoming will be addressed (Benafsche, 2021). But due to poor monitoring, lapses are not detected early enough and this leads to non -attainment of set objectives of the scheme. § Weak Structural Amenities: For social security to be functional and sustainable, adequate infrastructural amenities like constant and affordable electricity supply, good road network, affordable and fair communication services, supply of portable water, fair tax regime and effective waste disposal system (Makinde, 2018). The road networks in Nigeria are in terrible state. This prevents small and medium scale enterprises from assessing customers for effective service delivery. Also, in Nigeria, poor electricity supply is a bane to small and medium scale enterprises. Weak infrastructures results in high cost of goods and high security risks for the masses. § Lack of Sustainable and Equitable Credit Structure: Credit system consolidates continuity of the operations of social security system. Money plays important roles in development of social system. Without money, financial support will be delayed (Landis, 2020). This weakens the potentials of social security schemes and the capacity of the current ones to advance. § Compromised Criminal Justice System: This is necessary for the protection of interests of various stakeholders in a system. A functional criminal justice system will promote the interest of various stakeholders and deliver justice in the most appropriate manner (Eke, 2019). The success of a nation depends on the fairness, equity and transparency of the criminal justice system. The ability of citizens to get justice from the criminal justice restores public confidence in the system and what came out of it.

SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAMMES 3.1.1. Kidnapping
As noted by Akpan (2010) and supported by Obarisiagbon and Aderinto (2018), kidnapping is criminal act that involves abduction, transportation and incarceration of a persons or a group of people against their will. It is also referred to as false imprisonment.

Forms or types of kidnapping
In the words of Chinwokwu (2017), the following are the various forms of kidnapping: § Express Kidnaping: This is a type of kidnapping whereby criminal gang held hostage their victims and negotiate ransom for their release in a short period of time (Akanji, 2015).

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African Social Science and Humanities Journal (ASSHJ) -ISSN: 2709-1309 (Print), 2709-1317 (Online) |30 § Bride Kidnapping: As noted by Habila (2016), this form of kidnapping is taken a bride forcefully against the will of parents, even when the bride agrees to marry the bridegroom. This practice exists in Central Asia and other parts of the world. § Tiger Kidnapping: This is a type of kidnapping whereby relatives or significant others are compelled to make payment as conditionalities for the release of the kidnap victims (Nwagwu, 2014 3.1.3. Causes or reasons for high rate of kidnapping § Increase in Poverty Index: Nigeria is the headquarter of poverty in the world. Despite large human and material resources, majority of the citizens are wallowing in abject poverty (International Monetary Fund, 2013). There they viewed kidnapping as the last result to overcome poverty. The youths and other organise themselves to abduct high-profile victims for ransom. The collected ransom will be used thereafter to provide basic and luxury needs of life. § Youth Unemployment: According to National Bureau of Statistics (2021), over 37% of the population of Nigeria are unemployed. And the youth takes the lion share in the increasing unemployment rate in the country. The majority of kidnapping suspects are youths (Knight and Burford, 2014). In order to survive even after graduation most youths take into kidnapping as survival strategy. § Versed Disparity between the Rich and the Poor: As opined by Dugard (2011), aside abject poverty in the land, there is wide gap between the rich and poor in Nigeria. The rich becomes richer and the poor are poorer. This social welfare system is very poor, there is lop-sidedness in the distribution of national wealth (Nnam, 2013;Morgan, 2020). The economic disparity worsens poverty level. Poverty as earlier mentioned led to situations where people take to criminality like kidnapping. § Poor Governance: Governments at various levels have failed in their responsibilities of providing social and infrastructural development for the citizens. Poor governance has been existing for many years. The return of the country into civilian rule since 1999 has not witness the expected national development (Fage and Alabi, 2017). There are cases of corruption, election fraud, budget padding and budget failure. Aside poor governance, lack of confidence in the political system is one of the reasons for kidnapping in Nigeria. In the contemporary Nigerian society, there is wide spread inefficiency of government. There is false federalism, the state governments have strangulated the third tier of government which impedes grassroot participation and development (Bloch, 2016). These resulted in failed social and economic institutions in South-West and other parts of the country. These problems resulted in loss of confidence in the system. Some of the youths therefore, take law into their hands by involving in criminalities.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Theories are concepts, ideas, or propositions that are used in explaining social phenomenon. In the social science parlance, theories are built from research, and vice versa. Theory explains social phenomenon in more transparent and objective ways. To shed more light on the challenges of social security and kidnapping, social control theory by Travis Hirsch was adopted (Abrifor, 2020). According to Travis Hirsh, deviance is caused by lack or presence of the following variables. These are attachment, commitment, involvement and belief. An attachment to the norms and values of a society discourages involvement in deviant behaviour. However, when people are poorly attached or have no attachment to the norms and values of social system, deviant behaviour will arise (Teibowei & Uzobo, 2020). As applicable to kidnappings, kidnappers and their accomplices have poor attachment to social norms and values. They do not feel the impacts of their deadly actions, they inflict pains on victims by making them trek in forest for many days, living without bathing for months, rape and maiming the victims. Another factor raised by Travis Hirsh was commitment. According to Travis, commitment to norms and values of society reduces the chances of indulging in deviant acts. However, people with low commitment to norms and values of a social structure have higher propensity for deviance. Kidnappers have low commitment to the societal norms and values. This propels them to committing crime like kidnapping and subsequently harming their victims by subjecting them to subhuman acts like flogging, starving and others. In addition to commitment, involvement is another variable mentioned by Travis Hirsch as responsible for deviance (Carrol, 2018). The type of activities which people do and the intensity of involvement determines their perpetration of deviant behaviour. When people are not involved in unproductive activities, there is possibility of involvement in deviant acts. The kidnappers are idle, some of them who engage in economic activities. The activities are not gainful, so, they engage in kidnapping as the last resort. Belief is another factor explained by Travis Hirsh. According to him, those who do not believe in collective conscience have high tendency to involve in deviant behaviour. The kidnappers are the category of people that lack trust in the government and ability of the social system to ameliorate their conditions. Therefore, they engage in kidnapping to make an end meets (Parkinson & Hinshaw, 2021).

Implications of the Social Control Theory for the Challenges of Social Security and Incidents of Kidnapping
Social Control Theory: This theory was by Travis Hirsch. It throws more light on kidnapping by using five distinct variables. These are commitment; the spate of mass kidnapping is a demonstration of low commitment to national values and solidarity. The leaders are indifferent to social security systems. This leads to poor performance and subsequent mistrusts among the members of the public. Among the thrust of the social theory by Travis Hirsh is involvement. This has many ramifications. One aspect of involvement could be explained with respect to the stakeholders in the management of social security system (Orjimo, 2021). These are governments at various levels, the policy-makers, head of parastatals, captains of industries, security agencies and the general members of the public. The level of seriousness towards the success of the social security system is uncalled-for. The theory also establishes belief. For a society to move forward, common conscience matters and solidarity matters. If kidnappers have strong belief in the social norms and values, they might not involve in the criminality (Bwala & Windsor, 2021). On the other hand, kidnapping is a cult, whose members or groups take oath and hold allegiance to the group. They see kidnapping as an industry with various stakeholders. The stakeholders are the conspirators who are the direct or indirect members of the criminal gang. The economic gains in terms of ransom collected from the victims or their family members attracts other vulnerable members of society to kidnapping. The social security in terms of employment generation, capacity development and others welfare schemes keep youths engaged positively.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
There was peace and stability in the Nigerian system when the various indices of social security were in place. Among the indices of social security was graduate employment scheme. This engages youth productively. When people are meaningfully engaged in positive live activities, the possibility of engaging in crimes will be limited. Therefore, the social security system was evasive. Teeming unemployed graduates are left to roaming about without functional social security system. This instigated crimes such as kidnapping and armed robbery. The aftermaths of these criminal activities are lost of lives and properties, diversion of scarce financial resources to repair vandalized property and rehabilitation of suspects. Criminal activities scare away foreign and local investors because, investment insecurity undermines investment success. When these crimes reached the zenith, it instigated calls for self-determination. This worsens the existing fragile security due to consistent confrontation with formal security operatives. In order to ameliorate crimes in the security operations where enhanced through employment and deployment of security operatives to hotspots. As per bank robbery, bank management keyed into electronic surveillance like Closed Circuit Television (CCTC) Cameras, engagement of private security outfits, introduction of mobile and internet banking and modern access control like automatic and bullet prove doors. Despite these, kidnapping and armed trends increased in schools and banks. With consequential loss of lives and property. Lack or inadequate social security has been identified as the root of these criminal activities. Most of the suspects arrested in connection with these crimes attribute their involvement in kidnapping and armed robbery to joblessness. Social security is a mean of engaging idles hands productively. Therefore, this study will assess the provision and challenges of social security as solutions to crimes in South-Western Nigeria.   Source: https://constellis-production retrieved 10 July 2021 From Table 3, the sum of #2,140,000,000.00, was paid as ransom. In the year 2017, the highest ransom of # 582, 005,000.00 was paid. This represents 27.18% of the total amount paid between 2011 to 2020. The payment of ransom to kidnappers is one of the challenges of the measures put in place to end kidnapping. With effective social security system, the vulnerable people will be empowered. This discourages kidnapping, the ransom payment is an indication that the concern authority has lost grip of the national security. The ransom received by the kidnappers in the specified period exceeds a year budget for a state in the Northern Nigeria. This calls for drastic actions to end kidnapping across various countries.  Mass kidnaping in Nigeria captures international attention-Aagin Figure 1 shows the pictures of the students released by their abductors. On the 26 February 2021, 279 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, Zamfara State, were kidnapped and released four days later (Cambell, 2021). There are reports of payment of ransom to seek their release. This avalanches of kidnapping and inability of physical security control like army, police and other security forces. The application of alternative method like social security by addressing the various challenges mitigating against the social security system. From Figure 3, the four variables of social control theory as explained by Travis Hirschi were depicted. The attachment explains the level of social cohesion which discourages deviance. Weak attachment is synonymous to insensitivity to others. The kidnappers possess weak attachment to the social structure. Attachment is the level of investment in the social structure, kidnappers have little or no commitment in the social structure. They kill, destroy and rape because of low investment in the social system. At the same time, kidnappers` idleness enable them to commit deviance. Finally, kidnapers have poor belief in norms and values of social structure. This warranted their illegal activities.  Lack of belief in the system From Figure 5, a cross-section of school children benefiting from the Nigerian Home-Grown School Feeding Programme. The programme aims to achieve effective feeding of school children in order to attract enrolment and commitment. It is a capacity building for the vulnerable in Nigerian society.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
As noted by Riddel and Tisdall (2021), methodology are the various means whereby a researchers achieve the objectives of the study. In this study, content analysis of peer reviewed journals, edited textbooks and credible online sources were adopted. Data in this study were sourced secondarily and descriptive analysis. Systematic reviews of the dependent and independent variables were explored. Meanings of kidnappings were explored through texts, effects of kidnapping, and social security. The implications of kidnapping on economy, politics, social and other aspects of human endeavours were explored. This led to the theoretical reviews on social security and kidnapping. This led to the theoretical reviews on social security and kidnapping. Kidnapping has negative implications on economy, politics, social and other aspects of human endeavours. Also, the inadequate literature on kidnapping and social security warranted the study.

DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
From the frequency distribution results kidnapping rate is increasing in Nigeria and other parts of the globe. The roots of kidnapping have practical and theoretical underpinnings. From figure 1, in 2014, mass kidnapping that witnessed international attention occurred. Although some of the kidnapped students luckily escaped form kidnappers. The abduction of girls more than 200 girls form Jangebe Secondary School in Zamfara State is another episode of mass kidnapping in schools. There are series of mass kidnapping in Nigeria that calls for concern. From Table 1, in 2011 the global number of kidnapping was 5,554, in Nigeria, in the same year # 85,000,000=00 was paid as ransom to kidnappers. This was 3.37% of the ransom paid by government or families of kidnappers. From Table  1, in 2012, about 1,283 kidnap cases were recorded, which was 1.79% of the years under review.
The appreciable reduction in kidnap rate might result from various security measure put in place to checkmate kidnapping. However, #310,000,000=00 was paid as ransom to kidnapers in Nigeria. This might be responsible for low rate of kidnapping in Nigeria in 2012. However, effective social security measure should have been put in place to engage youths positively. This affirmation is in line with study conducted by Abosisade and Ogunmefun (2017). However, from Table 3, in the subsequent year, the number of kidnapping incidences increased to 3, 137 persons. The kidnappers might have lavished the ransom collected in 2012 or other sets of unemployed youths joined the kidnap syndicates. This view is aligned with the study carried out by Eke (2019). From table 3, in Nigeria, #100,000=00 was paid as ransom to kidnappers. There was a sharp reduction in the ransom compared to what was collected by ransom in the preceding year. This short-term impact of security measures manifested here. From table 1, in 2014, there was an unprecedented upward in kidnapping globally, 9,461 persons were abducted.
Meanwhile, there was an astronomical increase in the ransom paid to kidnappers in 2014. From Table 3, #7, 000, 00=00 was paid to kidnappers. From Table 3, the payment of ransom in 2013 has not been brought under control. This shows poor adoption of information communication technology (ICT) in tracking kidnappers despite assiduous commitment to National Identity Number (NIN), and Subscriber Identity Mode (SIM) link. Poor technology has been identified as a major cause of insecurity in Nigeria. This is in tandem with the research conducted by Lawrence, Saxome and Gard (2021). On the aggregate, from Table 1, 71,747 persons were kidnapped globally between 2010 and 2020. However, from Table 3, the sun of # 2,140,930,000=00 was paid to kidnappers as ransom between 2011 and 2021. From Table 2, the ten state with highest number of fatalities had 1,271 fatalities. As established by Adekunle (2018) and supported by Akanji (2018) and Aborisade and Ogunmefun (2017), continuous payment of ransom to kidnappers is a serious threat to the war against kidnapping.

RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS
The study opens windows on the roles of social security in curbing increasing kidnapping waves. It is based on theoretical method. It analysed secondary data on social security and kidnapping. The produced data could be subjected to analysis and improvement by other researchers in social and management sciences. The research in social security will now found its footing in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. This the dynamics of social security, as it is popular assumed to the retirement benefits for retired and other senior citizens. There are a number of variables in social security which the basis of social security as they are used to checkmate crimes like kidnapping and armed robbery. The study also touches human capacity as part of entrepreneurship development scheme to address kidnapping in all ramification.

CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY AND FUTURE RESEARCH
The study uses secondary data with various descriptive analyses on social security and kidnapping. It stands as scientific basis to fill knowledge gaps in the social security and violence crime control. It improves the number of literatures on social and security and kidnapping. The also improves the knowledge of individuals, security agencies, government at various levels, non-governmental organisations on social security as an avenue to improving youth capacity building for crime control.

CONCLUSION
This study deals with kidnapping, forms of kidnapping types of kidnapping, social security and challenges in curbing kidnapping and global trends in kidnapping. From the findings, kidnapping is global crime, almost every society experience one form of kidnapping or the other. The ugly trends of kidnapping for ransom is assuming unimaginable proportion. The there is an urgent need to curb kidnapping via effective social security schemes. Youth empowerment discourages kidnapping. It is established that youths have the lion share in kidnapping suspects. The ransom payment is an indication that the concern authority has lost grip of the national security. The ransom is an attraction or bait to other idle hands in society to join kidnapping. Therefore, as the concerned authority is working hard to end kidnapping through military and other security apparatus. The economic environment should be conducive enough to dissuade youths from joining the criminal gang. Through rigorous support for social security system. This paper will be useful to individuals, security agencies, and government at various levels, non-governmental organizations and researchers in social sciences. By exploring the methodological, theoretical and analytical shortcomings of the study.