NON-STATE ACTORS AND THE HUMAN SECURITY DILEMMA IN NIGERIA’S NIGER-DELTA REGION

Abstract

The core relevance of human security is built on the existence and alleviation of threats and vulnerabilities that threaten the survival of the individual. To this effect, there is an extensive focus in the human security literature on the responsibility of state and extra-state bodies in protecting the individual from selected range of existential impediments to survival and dignified living. Nonetheless, such focus on state and extra-state capacity overshadows the significance of the role of non-state entities in affecting and influencing immediate and future outcomes of protection, empowerment and survival. This lack of focus on non-state actors is a dilemma for understanding human security outcomes in contexts of severe human insecurities and how individual-level actions evolve as a coping response over time. This dilemma is further highlighted in contexts of the failure of state-centric responsibility for which the Niger delta is a case in point. Using the theoretical provisions of human security, objective human and environmental conditions in the Niger delta and resulting individuals’ coping strategies as a focal point, this paper engages with how the failure of state-centric responsibility and capacity shapes non-state and individual level actions towards everyday survival. The article finds that the individual’s need for subsistence income to support subsistence consumption perpetuates prevailing vulnerabilities and human insecurities. The article recommends that state-sponsored
strategies in enhancing human security must not only consider the environmental context but also the role of non-state entities in affecting overall human security outcomes.