SOCIO-INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN NIGERIA AND INCIDENCE OF SCELEROPHOBIA (FEAR OF CRIME)

Abstract

The study investigated “Socio-Indigenous People in Nigeria and Incidence of Scelerophobia (Fear of Crime)”. Nigeria is regarded as the worst place to be an indigenous person or a Christian, going by the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people, and continuous bloody persecutions (mass killings) of Christians by jihadists. Fear of crime could be in Nigeria. The purpose/objective of the study was to investigate incidence of scelerophobia (fear of crime) among socio-indigenous people of Nigerian, due to seemingly increasing crime manifestation in the country. A total of 388 participants (mean age = 24years) of both genders were sampled from different States of the country. The instrument was Fear of Crime Inventory by Nwankwo (2026), having Terrorism, Rape, Violence, Theft/Robbery, Victimization, Stalking, and Kidnapping as its dimensions. The design was ex-post facto cross-sectional design, and statistics for hypotheses analyses was Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), using SPSS version 26. Findings showed that: Nigerian socio-indigenous people did not significantly exhibit scelerophobia (fear of crime); Nigerian socio-indigenous people did significantly vary in exhibition of “violence” dimensions of scelerophobia (fear of crime); Nigerian socio-indigenous people did significantly vary in exhibition of “kidnapping” dimensions of scelerophobia (fear of crime); Nigerian socio-indigenous people of various genders did not significantly differ in exhibitions of scelerophobia (fear of crime); Nigerian socio-indigenous people of various genders did significantly vary in exhibition of “stalking” dimension of scelerophobia (fear of crime); Scelerophobia (fear of crime) of violence was highest among the Western socio-indigenous people of Nigeria, and followed by Eastern socio-indigenous people; Scelerophobia (fear of crime) of violence was at the average among the Middle-Belt socio indigenous people; Scelerophobia (fear of crime) of violence was below the average among the Northern socio-indigenous people of Nigeria; Scelerophobia (fear of crime) of kidnapping was slightly highest for the Eastern socio-indigenous people of Nigeria, over the Western socio-indigenous people; Scelerophobia (fear of crime) of kidnapping was at the average for the Middle-Belt socio-indigenous people; Scelerophobia (fear of crime) of kidnapping was below the average for the Northern socio indigenous people of Nigeria; Scelerophobia (fear of crime) of stalking was higher above average for the female socio-indigenous people of Nigeria; Scelerophobia (fear of crime) of stalking was below the average for the male socio-indigenous people of Nigeria. The implication of the findings is that indigenous people of Nigeria have developed learned helplessness to incidence of crime in Nigeria. Recommendation is made that the need for Nigerian socio-indigenous people to harness self-defence resources and protect themselves both as a group and an individual are inevitable.