Combating Armed Banditry in Southern Kaduna, Nigeria: An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Security Agencies

The research is on combating armed banditry in Southern Kaduna, Nigeria: Evaluating the effectiveness of the Security agencies. A sample of 89 respondents drawn from the five local government areas of southern Kaduna mostly affected by armed banditry was used for the study. The questionnaire was used as a major instrument for the collection of primary data from respondents; in-depth interviews were also conducted to stimulate further information from respondents. Secondary data was sourced from books, journals, newspapers, and online peerreviewed presentations. The routine activity theory was adopted to explain armed banditry in Kaduna State Findings suggested that banditry is on the increase as attacks are weekly and daily, the absence of security agencies in most communities and lack of more sophisticated weapons were responsible for lack of arrests anc stoppage of banditry in the Southern Kaduna region of Kaduna State. The study recommends that governmen should be more committed through the provision of superior firearms and ammunition to security agencies anc increase the number of security forces deployed in the affected communities to combat the phenomenor successfully.