Perceived Effect of Gangsterism on Livelihood of Rural Farmers in Ikorodu Loca Government Area, Lagos, Nigeria

TITLE:                       Perceived Effect of Gangsterism on Livelihood of Rural Farmers in Ikorodu

NAME:                       ODUBELA OLUTOBI OLUSEYI

MATRIC NO:             PG/16/0423

COLLEGE:                College of Agricultural Management and Rural Development

DEPARTMENT:        Agricultural Extension and Rural Development

DEGREE:                   M.AGRIC(Agricultural Extension and Rural Development)

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted to investigate effect of gangsterism on the livelihood of rural farmers in Ikorodu Local Government. Purposive sampling was used based on the nature of the study. A sample of 200 farmers were selected from five communities selected from the two main districts in Ikorodu Local Government and forty farmers were selected from each of the communities. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the socio economic characteristics and inferential statistics such as Chi-square, PPMC, ANOVA and Regression were used to test the hypotheses of the study. The result of the study shows that 65.5% of the rural farmers were male and 60.5% made use of less than 2 hectares for farming activities. 28.5% had SSCE. The mean of household size was 6 persons while the mean income was N35500 per month. 100% reported activities of Badoo gang, serial killers and street gangs in their communities. 90% perceived the affiliation of Badoo gangs with Political bodies.95% feared the Badoo gang most of all the gangs in the community. 80.5% claimed mobbing of gang members serves as deterrent to further gang activities in their communities.89% claimed that farm activities were disrupted by land grabbers. 100% perceived that some members of the communities are members of Badoo gangs, kidnappers and land grabbers. 31.5 % worried about the future attack of gangsters on them and their household. 34.5% were willing to stay in their communities amidst gangsters’ activities. 43% were moderately impaired through gang activities on their social engagements. 43% were moderately impaired on practicing their religious activities while over 50% were severely impaired on interacting with strangers based on incidence of gangsterism.43% were satisfied with police reactiveness to criminal incidence while 59% were satisfied with current situation in terms of normalcy and calmness in the community. 47.5% were satisfied with their standard of living in comparism to their standard of living before escalation of gang crises. 34% of the respondents were dissatisfied with the amount of sleep they had based on the fear of attack. 30.5% had upsetting memories about gang activities while34.5% had dreams related to traumatic events related gangsterism while 36% felt upset when reminded of traumatic events of gang activities. 34.5% were slightly impaired in the sales of agricultural production activities while 35% were moderately affected on profit realized on agricultural produce. Chi-square also showed that marital status of the respondents (χ2=15.274, P=0.02) was significantly related (P