RECURRENT EXPENDITURE ON INTERNAL SECURITY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

It is the responsibility of the government to ensure the internal safety of those living in the country. This is because it (the government) has the resources needed to deploy and ensure that the country is safe. To achieve internal safety, the federal government of Nigeria has continued to increase expenditure on internal security with a view of securing all those living in the country for investment and innovation. Thus, this paper investigated the relationship between government recurrent expenditure on internal security and economic growth in Nigeria from 1980 to 2022. The data for the study were sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was employed as the main analytical tool. The results of the analyses revealed the presence of a long-run association among the variables. The results also showed that in the long run, government recurrent expenditure on internal security has a positive and insignificant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria. At the same time, exchange rate has a positive and significant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria. Also, interest rate has a negative and significant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria. In the short run, government recurrent expenditure on internal security has a negative and significant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria. The exchange rate and interest rate have a positive and significant relationship with economic growth in Nigeria. The study concluded that the relationship between government recurrent expenditure on internal security and economic growth in Nigeria varies, as it could be positive (in the long run) or negative (in the short run). Therefore, the study recommended that recurrent expenditure on internal security which includes pay to officers, salaries to specialists within internal security forces or connected to internal security organizations, pensions of internal security personnel; and social services for personnel and their families; maintenance and operations; internal security research and development, medical services, etc. should be increased because in the long run it will provide a spin-off effect on the national economy and increase economic growth.  Article visualizations: