Global Trends in Arms Proliferation in Third World Countries and the Impending Apocalypse of the Human Race:A Case Study of Arms Race and Security Challenges in Nigeria

The study focuses on the consequences or implications of arms proliferation on the contemporary human society, with particular emphasis on the emergent arms race and security trends in Nigeria. The growing debates across intellectual bents and traditional boundaries of states are on how armed conflicts and crimes are related to or engendered by arms proliferation. The debates find confluence in the fact that the evolving trend is a universal evil; posing challenges to human civilization and must be tackled to halt the blistering reign of destructive culture and impunity from gaining deeper ischolar_mains in the world. This is in recognition of the fact that today’s world is faced with varying degrees of crisis which involves use of arms of differing sophistications, many of which are possessed illegally despite prohibitions on illegal arms trade. It props up armed related crimes and resort to use of arms for attacks in conflict situations. The hallmarks are incidences like gang shooting, kidnapping, terrorism, armed robbery, and communal conflicts. They are essentially promoted and sustained by arms at the disposal of unauthorized users. The study observes that it causes collateral damage and invariably results in avoidable deaths, injury, discomfiture and displacement of many innocent citizens. Many others are victims of legitimate arms abuse by some ruthless law enforcement agents. The entire scenario plunges society into psychological trauma of insecurity and there is no room for a healthy air of life in such precarious situation. To that extent, the study recommends that there should be community focused mopping of illegal arms in circulation, closure of arms black market to destroy the network, clampdown on syndicates and dealers on illegal arms and promulgation of deterrent laws with severe penalty to discourage trading on illegal arms. The data used for the study is generated from the secondary source and evaluative method applied in data analysis. It adopted ‘‘Attribution Theory’’ for an explanatory framework, to show how armed conflicts is attributed to arms proliferation. The central thesis is that there is logical relationship between arms proliferation and armed crimes and conflicts.