Global Journal of Sociology: Current Issues

Peace, stability and security are the essential preconditions for development anywhere. Africa have been grappling with myriads of security challenges in its quest to rescue the inhabitants of the continent from doldrums of insecurity and underdevelopment which stunted growth and development. Achieving sustainable development is the core concept for the post 2015 development agenda that provides an integrated response to the complex security, environmental, societal, economic and governance challenges that directly and disproportionately affect people. Security is vital for sustainable development across Africa, the fundamental challenge of managing or ending conflict(s) remains; and with it comes the challenge of creating or sustaining secure environments and using security as an enabler for development. The nexus between sustainable development, on the one hand, and peace, stability


Introduction
Since the dawn of 20 th and the beginning of 21 st centuries combating violence and insecurity particularly in Africa stands at the top of the international security agenda.The social development literature often focuses on poverty as the root cause of support for violent political groups and on economic development as a key to addressing the problems.But peace, stability and security are essential preconditions for development anywhere in the globe, particularly in the crises ridden areas.Africa has been grappling with myriads of security challenges in its quest to rescue the inhabitants of the continent from doldrums of insecurity that stunted growth and development in the continent.Sustainable development is the core concept for the post 2015 development agenda that provides an integrated response to the complex security, environmental, societal, economic and governance challenges that directly and disproportionately affect the people.Secured and safe environment is essential for the realization and achieving any desired goal because no any meaningful development could be achieved in an atmosphere of violence, chaos and turmoil let alone to sustain the development projects and initiatives that are implemented.
The objective of this paper is to examine and explain the effects of insurgency and militancy on achieving sustainable development in the continent.Thus, addressing security challenges has become an integral part of sustainable development.Methodologically, the paper used secondary source of data; both empirical and theoretical.Security therefore, is pivotal for sustainable development across Africa.The fundamental challenge of managing or ending conflict(s) remains; and with it comes the challenge of creating or sustaining secure environments and using security as an enabler for development.The nexus between sustainable development on the one hand, peace, stability, and security on the other is not a new concept in the security and development discourse in this part of the globe.Whereas the Millennium Development Goals and the new Sustainable Development Goals do not contain any specific goal to this effect, the connection is implied throughout the Millennium Declaration, which underpins the MDGs and SDGs.Furthermore, in development and security policy discourses on the African continent, the symbiotic relationship between peace and development has been explicitly articulated.For example, the NEPAD framework document clearly spells out that "African leaders have learned from own experiences that peace, security, democracy, good governance, human rights and sound economic management are conditions for sustainable development" (NEPAD, 2001:71).This underscores the importance of security in achieving any meaningful development and the sustenance of the development in Africa.
In Nigeria, the Niger Delta region has been embroiled in crises between the government forces and aggrieved militant groups over certain fundamental issues affecting the region.Since the turn of democracy in 1999, militants have intensified their fight with government forces, sabotaged oil installations (which have led to more oil spillages), took foreign oil workers hostage and carried out lethal car bombings.At the root of the problem, is a crisis of underdevelopment.The crisis was exacerbated by emergent issues of gross distortion of Nigerian federalism in respect to resource control, citizenship rights and environmental degradation (Ashimolowo & Odiachi, 2012).Findings from the region indicated that, the living conditions in the Niger Delta in 2005, the only year in which a Human Development Index (HDI) was measured for the region, it was ranked higher than the national average.However, the spatial distribution of scores was uneven.Heavily populated urban Local Government Areas (LGAs) typically had high HDI scores, while many LGAs with oil facilities rated very low, especially in Rivers and Bayelsa States.About three-quarter of Niger Delta LGAs ranked lower than the national average, confirming an uneven distribution in the quality of life in the region.These findings are supported by another study (Francis et al., 2011) showing that one out of every four households in the five key Niger Delta states belonged to the lowest quintile, the "core poor".The five states were Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers, Delta, and Rivers States.These studies indicated high levels of inequality within the region.By 2006, there was 40 percent youth unemployment and 43 percent relative poverty rates in the Niger Delta region.The corresponding national average was 34.25 percent and 54.76 percent respectively.The activities of oil pipes destruction by the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) formed in December 2005, Niger Delta Volunteer Forces (NDVF) and the recent militant group, Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) created in 2015 has further deteriorated the already damaged ecosystem in the region.Other developmental projects initiated by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) other donor agencies, oil companies, federal and state governments were also destroyed.The oil spillage from exploration and pollution have degraded the forest, farmlands and killed fishes, unemployment, administrative mismanagement of the public funds.Therefore, rendered the people of the region vulnerable to underdevelopment, poverty, diseases.These deplorable conditions make the region volatile for violence and crimes and sustaining development initiatives practically impossible.
Based on the above, the paper argue that the root causes of the Niger Delta conflict included expressed concerns about exploitation, environmental degradation, underdevelopment, poverty, marginalization, and the perceived insensitivity of the government (Snapps & Hamilton, 2011).Expressed dissatisfactions from concerned parties resulted in various forms of intimidation including the 1995 hanging of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other environmental activists, the 1999 massacre in Odi community amongst others (Igini, 2011).By 2005, the cauldron had boiled over with an average of 120 to 150 violent community conflicts per year in Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta states.Over 50 militant groups with an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 armed youths operated in the region (Egbeme, 2015).The proliferation of militant groups in Niger Delta has become hydra headed, each rise with different intensity of violence and criminality that are detrimental to security, peace and economy of the nation.Relatedly, another threat to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa and Nigeria in particular, is the insurgency in the North East.Since 2009, acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by the Jama'atu Ahlissunnah Lidda'awati wal Jihad (People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad"), also known as Boko Haram, have eclipsed Nigeria's longstanding security threats such as piracy, militancy, kidnappings, and armed robbery (Onuoha, 2013).The militant group attracted worldwide attention beginning from July 2009, when it staged a violent anti-government uprising that resulted in the death of over 800 people, mostly its members.The group has since then ramped up violent attacks on diverse government and civilian targets.Over 3,500 people have been killed in violence blamed on the group, while tens of thousands more internally displaced by the insurgency and associated military crackdown.The central concern is the growing humanitarian crises caused by the destruction of basic amenities.Sophisticated arms and weapons used by its militants in recent attacks, evidenced in seizures made by security forces in northern Nigeria (Onuoha, 2013).

Conceptualization
It is within the context linking insecurity and development that, this paper attempt to situate the understanding of sustainable development beyond environment alone, instead it explores relationship or link between peace, security and sustainable development with other related context such as sustainable communities, sustainable resource management, sustainable livelihoods or sustainable societies and sustainable peace.Because, confining sustainable development to the sustainability of environment alone is too narrow, simplistic and neglects some key social variables particularly security which all the developmental efforts are geared towards serving humanity.In this regard, the paper would explain how insecurity hampers the realization of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in most of the African countries particularly Nigeria.Issues such as sustainable development, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), challenges of sustainable development, insecurity in Africa, sustainable development priorities in five sub-regions in Africa, insurgency, militancy and sustainable development Goals would be analyzed.

Sustainable Development
In its literal rudiments, sustainability means a capacity to maintain some entity, outcome or process over time.Agriculture, forest management, or financial investment might be deemed sustainable, meaning that the activity does not exhaust the material resources on which it depends.An analogous use of the term "sustainability" refers to dependent social conditions; for example, a peace treaty, an economic policy, or a cultural practice may be called sustainable if it would not exhaust the support of a political community.In its increasingly common use, the concept of sustainability frames the ways in which environmental problems jeopardize the conditions of healthy economic, ecological, and social systems.Similarly, it could be argued that, the history of mankind has it that, humanity has the ability to achieve sustainable development, that is, to ensure that development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.The sustainable development concept resulted from a gradual shift in development discourse.In the 1950s and 1960s, development mainly focused on economic growth and increases in output based on theories of production efficiencies.In the 1970s, however, observations were made on the growing gap between the rich and the poor in and between regions, which resulted in the shift to focus on equity issues with emphasis on social development, security and income distribution as key elements (Economic Commission for Africa, Africa Regional Report on Sustainable Development, 2012).During the same period, observations on the impact of economic growth on the environment drew attention to the importance of integrating environmental concerns in the development and security reforms agenda.
In a nutshell, sustainable development encompasses the interlinkages of the three dimensions of economic growth, social development and environmental sustainability are dependent variables whereas security is the independent variable.The environment is considered the source of life and gives rise to economic activities, which in turn sustain social development.Without security, social development and its durability would be a mirage and hoax.This, however, is not necessarily a linear relationship as the environment also directly influences social development.

Insurgency
Insurgency is a protracted political-military struggle directed toward subverting or displacing the legitimacy of a constituted government or occupying power and completely or partially controlling the resources of a territory through the use of irregular military forces and illegal political organizations.The common denominator for most insurgent groups is their objective of gaining control of a population or a particular territory, including its resources.The insurgency in this paper refers to the armed violence in the North-Eastern Nigeria started in the early 2000s but came to the limelight in the 2009 after the death of the Jama'atu Ahlissunnah Lidda'awati wal Jihad (Boko Haram) leader Muhammad Yusuf in the custody of security operatives.Throughout this paper, insurgency would be use to denote the activities of the Boko Haram and cattle in Nigeria.

Militancy
According to Mufti (2012), militancy refers to the use of violence.Militants are groups of individuals who employ violence as a means to some end or to express hatred or contempt for some group of people.Militancy is the actual use of violence or more generally, participation in a militant group's activities, especially those that are violent (Mufti, 2012).In this context, the activities of the militants' groups in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria would be referred as militants in the paper.Whereas militia is a body of armed fighters often representing specific ethnic, religious, ethnic, clan or other communal groups or political parties.Militias may serve the government directly or indirectly, operate independently to combat other militias or insurgent groups, pursue criminal activity or support an insurgency.This would be used to refer the myriads of ethnic militias and cattle rustlers in other parts of Nigeria which has been undermining sustainable development.There are some challenges facing sustainable development in the continent discussed below.

Challenges of Sustainable Development in Africa
The challenge of sustainable development is to achieve a balance in interrelationships among the three dimensions (economic growth, social development and environmental sustainability).Economic growth therefore has to be environment-friendly and socially responsible.For economic growth to be sustainable, efforts need to be directed to an efficient and sustainable use of natural resources; agricultural practices that are environment-friendly; renewable energy development; less-carbon intensive production of goods and services, including efficient transportation; and less intensive production and consumption of resources, goods and services, among others.These promote efficient and resilient production systems, and minimize resource depletion, degradation and greenhouse gas emissions, thus leading to stronger and more resilient economies.Similarly, the three dimensions of sustainable development are cast in the overarching role of governance, strong institutions such as democracy and security in Africa.For the region, governance and institutions in particular are fundamental to sustainable development, as they provide the foundation on which economic growth, socially responsible and environment-friendly development rests.Enabling governance environment and functional institutions provide constitutional, accountable, regulatory and legal frameworks for productive activities to thrive under, which in turn would enhance sustainable development.Sustainable development therefore, thrives best in an environment of good governance, peace and security, but armed conflicts, civil disobedience and communal clashes remains the major obstacle to development in several parts of the continent.The maintenance of an environment of peace and security is therefore one of Africa's foremost development imperatives.Apart from its costs in human and material terms, conflicts have been established that, it impedes production, damage infrastructure, prevent the reliable delivery of social services and disrupt societies.
It is undisputable that, Africa is the most sub-divided continent, with small and fragmented economies which undermine the continent's position in the global development arena as a result of conflicts and insecurity; due to internal strife in Nigeria, Mali, Niger Republic, Central African Republic, Burundi, Libya and boundary dispute between Kenya and Uganda, Eritrea and Ethiopia.In spite of the long-standing commitments and the emphasis placed by African leaders on the process of regional integration, this has been slow and therefore, remains a major challenge for Africa (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 2015).Ideally, the focus should not only be on states currently affected by violence and insecurity; the absence of violence does not equate to a sustainable peace.It has been discovered that, forms of structural violence and suppressed tensions that mask latent forms of conflict could or have the capacity to erupt into political crises, humanitarian emergencies, costly interventions and the derailment of development gains.Popular uprisings in parts of North Africa and the West Africa provide useful example in this regard.Tunisia and Egypt were on track to meet MDG targets before 2015, but the instability that broke out in those countries pushed them off course.Most countries could prevent the loss of developmental gains by building greater resilience to instability and by developing systems that could prevent conflicts from becoming violent if the leaders have the political will and desire.It could be deduced from above discourse that; insecurity has been the major impediment to the realization of development and its sustenance in Africa among other related factors.To this, the paper review literatures on sustainable development in relation to insecurity in Africa.

Sustainable Development and Insecurity in Africa: Causes of Insecurity
There are myriads and multifaceted factors attributed as the causes of insecurity in Africa.Colonial legacy that merged people that were historically separated and separated societies that were historically living together, this has been the source of inter and intra community conflicts and border dispute.Others are political instability due to military intervention into politics, undemocratic seattight leaders and poor governance.Politicization of ethnicity and religion has been the secondary factor to insecurity in Nigeria and Africa at large.These factors are manifested in the form of insurgency and militancy in Africa.
Unconstitutional changes of government (such as in Guinea-Conakry, Guinea-Bissau, and Mali) have, however, further weakened citizens' confidence in governments and disputed elections are often fought on ethnic rather than political lines, therefore favoring some groups and disenfranchising others.There is little independent oversight of governments, and national executive and judicial institutions are fragile.Many administrations are bolstered by security forces that protect the powerful and intimidate the weak, and easy access to weapons reinforces power once held.As one participant commented "if you have a gun, you have a say."At a regional level, interstate disputes over borders and resources have resulted in a lack of cooperation and of common legal frameworks.Spoilers and criminals are therefore able to move between jurisdictions across porous borders without fear of reprisals because definitions of offenses are unclear, and enforcement mechanisms are not coherent between territories.This economic and political fragmentation has hindered continental responses to challenges that are common to many states in the continent.
Social and economic injustices are compounded in the continent by habitual corruption evident from the top of society down through all levels.This further erodes confidence in governments and impunity of officials restricts reform and full democratization.The benefits of financial inflows from donors are often not felt at a local level because funds are appropriated by officials before they reach their intended beneficiary.The riches of the region have benefited only an elite few but not the local populations.Revenues have not been invested in infrastructure and development and communities see their governments doing deals with international companies whom they view as stealing their oil and hydrocarbon reserves.This perceived theft exists alongside actual theft of resources through pipeline vandalism and illegal bunkering where oil is stolen directly from pipelines, refined, and sold in local and international markets.In addition to oil exploitation, the effects of illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing are being felt in the West African region and countries at the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.West African waters are estimated to have the highest levels of IUU fishing in the world.This represents up to 37 percent of the region's catch, resulting in economic losses and compromising the food security and livelihoods of coastal communities.Trawlers damage seabed habitats and trap large numbers of vulnerable species, such as sharks and turtles, in their catch.
In addition to the environmental damage that forced people to migrate, the large catches made by illegal boats deplete fish stocks and deny fish to local, artisanal fishermen.Resource mismanagement and lack of effective regulations therefore worsens economic hardship and builds resentment among communities.As populations see their resources being used to benefit others, there is an increased risk of violence to seize their "rightful share."Research in the continent (Africa) indicates that, beginning from the 1980s, there has been a gradual, but concerted attempt to reverse the trend of political despair and disillusionment, which hitherto characterized political life in Africa.This attempt manifests in the demand for political pluralism and democratization.The long years of political misrule and bad governance exemplified by personalized political regimes and ruthless dictatorships left most African states politically demobilized and economically decapitated with an immiserated population ravaged by poverty, illiteracy and diseases.Regrettably, Africa harbours the highest stock of the world's poorest people and long serving leaders.The debilitating poverty of the people accentuated by the economic and security crises seems to have provided a basis and indeed, a common platform in the demand for democratic change by the people.Thus, the struggle for democratization in Africa has relevance not only in liberalizing the political arena and achieving civil and political liberties, but also to ensure better living standards and social welfare for the African people (Adejumobi, 1996;Mamdani, 1987;Lisulo 1991).
Therefore, insecurity has become a curse for achieving sustainable development in Africa and Nigeria in particular.Thus, the paper focuses on insecurity as a curse for sustainable development below.

Insecurity in Africa: A Curse for Sustainable Development
Over the years in post-independence Africa, the continent has witnessed an increase in the number of interstate conflicts, it has been particularly affected destructive violence that produced humanitarian and developmental challenges.The fact that armed conflict has been present in the daily life of most Africans is just the tip of the iceberg.Direct violence is, in fact, the reflection of an existing pattern of institutionalized structural and cultural violence on Africa's societies (Ramirez, n.d).
The near collapse of the agrarian system, an increasing debt burden, drought and famine, the rise in authoritarism, the increasing number of refugees and internally displaced people, the increasing rate of environmental degradation and discrimination all are features of African development.Thus, development in Africa instead of being linked with equity, equality and cooperation has induced marginalization, exploitation and poverty.The poor development performance of African countries and the use of violence to respond to conflicts are feeding each other at a point that is difficult to determine the end of one and the beginning of the other.Sustainable development aims to embrace more than forestalling environmental destruction and resource exhaustion.It also implies the provision of a peaceful environment where human beings could fulfill their needs and sustain development so far recorded in the continent.
Equally, armed conflicts, low human development and degradation of the environment were adjudged the most severe problems human beings are confronted with at the end of the twentieth century.Conflicts happen every day, everywhere and to everyone.The ending of the Cold War has raised the hope for a world that is less violent, more developed and peaceful where conflicts could be resolved in non-violent ways.However, the 1990s have so far seen no decrease in the number of conflicts, and most forecasts predict a further increase (Ramirez, n.d).Furthermore, in 1970, the United Nations Secretary-General in his Declaration on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the United Nations, pointed out that, mankind is confronted today by a critical and urgent choice: either increased peaceful cooperation and progress or disunity and conflict, even annihilation.
Moreover, The Rio Declaration in 1992 stated explicitly that war actually prevents sustainable development and that peace, development and environmental protection are therefore interwoven and indivisible not just as concepts but as processes, where intergenerational and intergenerational equity play a central role.Therefore, peace and sustainable development has been regarded as a universal desideratum, where the peace problematic cannot, and must not, be separated from the social, economic and political conditions.More so, consistent with the need for sustainable development in Africa, over the past decades there has been a growing body of literature, mainly in the field of international relations, which explores different aspects of the security concept.Concepts such as human security, environmental security, political security, ecological security and economic security have been at the core of the debate.They reflect the growing need for recognizing that security is dependent on such factors as political democracy, human rights, social and economic development and environmental sustainability as is on military stability.As a consequence, this new notion of security identifies two main challenges: first, the existence of non-military threats that demand non-military means of providing security and secondly the need for extending the concept of security from the state to the citizen.In this context, the World Bank has stated: The security sector is very much part of the state; like other public sector institutions, it is accountable to citizens and should operate in a transparent manner in accordance with democratic principles.These concepts have dominated discussion of how to create secure environments that enable development, as expressed in good governance and human security, and how to balance statecentered and people centered approaches.Strengthening civilian institutions and their ability to oversee the security sector, as well as to provide human security, should be priority areas for the development of the community.Security reform has been correctly described as the quintessential governance issue" (World Bank, 1999:8).
Thus, this paper established that, development is critical to overcoming structural violence, which in turn may be crucial to eliminating direct violence.Structural violence is often based on a combination of exploitation and fragmentation of the majority rights.Corroborating the above argument, OAU (1981) opine that, development is meant to raise the living of the majority population of a society.Promotion of welfare or development ensures the more basic conditions for peace.Development is a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process that aims at the constant improvement of the wellbeing of the entire population and of all individuals has been done as well for regional organizations worldwide.For instance, the Organization of Africa Unity (OAU) adopted on 29 June 1981 the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.This charter entered into force on 21 October 1985 and states in its article 22: "All peoples shall have the right to their economic, social and cultural development with due regard to their freedom and identity an in the equal enjoyment of the common heritage of mankind," and on its article 24: "All peoples have the right to a general satisfactory environment favorable to their development."The concepts of peace, development and security form a web of interwoven relationships and processes.For the past 17 years, Nigeria has been struggling with one form of internal conflicts or the other resulting from militancy and insurgency.This has affected not only development but its sustainability in the country.Related to development is the concept of peace.Peace is seen as "the condition in space for nonviolent development" (Galtung, 1996: 223).This implies non-violence not only against each other but it also involves non-violence against the ecological environment because it is the essential precondition for all human activity.Furthermore, the existing trends of development, based just on economic growth, have been achieved at the cost of the environment.This has jeopardized the existence of every human being through increase scarcity and the degradation of natural resources.The deterioration of the natural environment is also a force, which contributes in the long term to livelihood insecurity and dissolution in Africa that result in hunger, violence over grazing lands between farmers and herders.Consequently, what has happened is that development and security are often pulling in divergent directions.It is in this context that the concept of "sustainable development" emanated.And the current state of security and humanitarian challenges that bedeviled Nigeria particularly in North East and Niger Delta geopolitical zones.
Therefore, sustainable development is, a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are all in harmony, an enhancement, both current, and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations (WCED, 1987).This concept goes beyond to forestall environmental destruction and resource exhaustion.It involves, among others, two main challenges: social justice and equity.Thus, if it is believed that sustainable development is the option to guarantee the survival of the human race and that this involves issues of inter and intra-generational equity, it could not be denied that an environment of peace is not just important, but is actually necessary.Sustainable development as both an objective and as a process, embraces in the same way, that the concept of peace and security does a change in fundamental attitudes to life and work in social, cultural and political institutions.This underscore the importance of security to achieve sustainable development in Africa.The result of militancy in the Niger Delta and its effects on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Foreign Reserve has been glaring in the inability of the twenty-seven States to pay workers' salaries in Nigeria, due to the reduction in the crude oil exportation rate.The next part of the paper attempt to look at the sustainable development in five sub-regions of the African continent in relation to insecurity, which each region has its peculiar challenge.

Sustainable Development Priorities in the Five Sub-Regions of Africa
The sustainable development priorities identified in the five sub-regions of Africa North, West, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa.The preparation of the five sub-regional reports was based on extensive literature review, field surveys and consultations with stakeholders in the sub-regions.The draft reports were deliberated on at the Africa Regional Consultative Meeting on Sustainable Development Goals, which was organized by ECA jointly with AUC and AfDB from 31 October to 5 November 2013.In addition to common cross-cutting issues such as governance and institutions, peace and security, financing, capacity development and technology transfer were discussed.The following issues were identified as key sub-regional sustainable development priorities.

North Africa
Climate change and environmental challenges; dependence on primary commodities and low economic diversification; insufficient employment-generating growth; food insecurity; inequality and lack of access to basic services; energy insecurity and the need for investments in renewable energy.The spiraling activities of the armed groups related to Al -Qaeda operating in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt have distorted the development agenda in the sub-region.The activities of the Islamic fundamentalists have been destroying the environment that is already arid and unproductive for agriculture.Hence, putting majority of the population in hunger and poverty.Also, attacks on Western tourists has greatly scared foreigners to the region which in affect the revenue of the countries that relies on earning from tourism.

West Africa
Tackling poverty; gender equality; improvements in education quality; improved access to affordable and good quality health; sustainable water, energy and transport infrastructure development, inclusive growth; agriculture and food security; proper environmental and natural resource management; social protection for the poor and vulnerable; sanitation and urban management; and enhancing partnerships for development.The activities of the Al-Qaida in the Maghreb have displaced population in Mali, Niger Republic and Mauritania aggravating the poverty of already poverty-stricken countries.The Boko Haram insurgency has displaced millions of people in Nigeria, Niger Republic, Cameron and Chad.It has created serious humanitarian of managing Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria, Niger Republic, Cameroon and Chad.Women and children are worst affected by insurgency.Thus, putting their future in jeopardy without parents and breadwinners to cater for their education, shelter, clothing and other psychological assistance.It is difficult to achieve some of the Sustainable Development Goals in West Africa under the atmosphere of insecurity and violence.

Central Africa
Economic diversification to deal with over dependence on natural resources; infrastructural development; poverty, hunger and malnutrition; improvements in water and sanitation; improvements in access and quality of education; enhancing gender equality and empowerment; unemployment and underemployment; and improvements in environmental, water resources and urban management.The crises in the Central Africa Republic and political instability in the neighboring have worsen the living standard of people in the region.It has created refugees burden on Chad and Cameroon hence creating humanitarian exigency for the displaced persons and refugees.Almost all basic necessities of life are lacking the Central Africa thus threatening the realization of sustainable development because in this circumstance, the development has not taken place let alone to sustain it.

Eastern Africa
High and sustained economic growth to translate into jobs and human development; improvements in education and skills development; increased agricultural productivity and value addition; sustainable energy development; improvements in access to affordable health care; tackling environmental and climate related challenges; and infrastructural development.The collapse of Somalia, Ethiopia-Eritrean conflicts and the war in Darfur has destroyed virtually all social infrastructure in the war-torn Horn of Africa.Kenya hosts the largest refugee camp in the world Dadaap.Hunger, famine, drought and violence created one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the sub-region.The sub-region is lagging behind in all Human Development Index.The violence in the Great Lake: political turmoil in Burundi, remnant of Rwandan genocide, political uncertainty in Congo Democratic Republic (DRC) between President Joseph Kabila and opposition M23 rebels and the guerilla attacks by the Lord Resistant Army (LRA) in Uganda stunted development in one of the blessed in region in the world.Congo (DRC) is the producer in timber in the world but rebels have been deforesting the tress in exchange for weapons and food without replanting.Thus, help in climate change and flooding.Farming communities were displaced by the violence along the coastal areas of the second largest freshwater lake in the world by area Lake Victoria.This makes the displaced persons and refugees poor, vulnerable to all forms of social problems and live under humanitarian assistance.Only Tanzania in the sub-region has the potential in achieving sustainable development.

Southern Africa
Fight against poverty and inequality; improvements in health and nutrition; improvements in education; promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment; sustainable environmental management and climate change.Though it is the area that less political upheavals and violence but the it has been facing the scourge of the dreaded disease of HIV/AIDS.Young population have been greatly affected the disease, thus investment in the education, health and food could not be sustained in a society whom the life span of its population is very short.The next discussion centers on how insurgency, militancy and insecurity retard the attainment or realization of the sustainable development goals in Africa specifically Nigeria.As a tradition in Sociology and social sciences, it is pertinent to situate any study on a theoretical framework to provide explanation for every phenomenon.Therefore, the paper adopted political model as the analytical tool for explanation.

The Oretical Explanation: Political Model
Political model proposes to sustain social systems that realize human dignity and security.Concerned with the way in which local and global environmental problems jeopardize human dignity and peace.The model focuses on sustaining the environmental conditions of a fully human life.Environmental justice and civic environmentalism represent one strategy of this model; by focusing on environmentally mediated threats to human life they point to necessary ecological goods or sustainable environmental management schemes (Ageyman, 2005).Other strategies within this model, such as agrarianism or deep ecology, involve more substantive visions of the human good.Ultimately, these models recommend sustaining the cultural conditions needed to realize ecological personhood, civic identity, or even personal faith through ecological membership (Plumwood, 2002;Wirzba, 2003).
One subset of the political model takes a pragmatist's approach and suggests that people must maintain conditions for keeping open the debate about sustainability.In this view sustaining a political system of deliberative democracy effectively requires sustaining ecological and economic goods along with political goods like procedural rights, security and peace.However, that both the quality and quantity of those goods is regulated by the needs of the political system, which thereby constrains sustainability commitments.The model emphasized that, environment could not be habitable without peace and security, security is an essential element for sustainable development anywhere.The paper discussed the challenges of achieving sustainable development in Africa in the next section.

Insurgency, Militancy, Insecurity and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS)
This section analyze how insecurity in Africa hamper the realization of the SDGs in the continent.According to the International Organization of Migration's (IOM) June 2016 report, there are over 1.4 million,159,445 and 111,671 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states respectively, not to mention hundreds of thousands that are losing their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe in order to escape to structural or armed violence.The food insecurity and low levels of food consumption could be attributed to depleted household stocks and poor access to markets, high prices of staple food, low income and extreme coping strategies.The activities of the insurgents and militants in Africa is one of the major threat to the elimination of poverty.Poverty and conflict are commonly understood to be closely interconnected; both create or recall pictures of destitution, despondent, disintegration, destruction and human sufferings.Conflicts have led to high number of deaths, refugees and displaced people, material destruction and even state failure or collapse.In this way, years of development and investment efforts are devastated.Poverty, likewise, is seen as being a cause of conflict, when grievances are not met, the poor and deprived in the society will riot, question the leadership as well and even join rebel groups.Peace enhances development opportunities while development could help prevent conflicts and reinforce peace and security.Countries that have experienced violent conflicts in the recent past are among the most vulnerable countries and face bigger challenges in meeting the targets than other developing countries (Ikejiaku, 2012).
The activities of the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-Eastern Nigeria has displaced millions of people from their homes, destroyed economic activities such as the largest stock fish farm in Nigeria located as the Lake Chad coast of Baga Local Government.The Northern Borno is also the major transit of cattle to Nigeria from Cameroon, Chad, Niger Republic and other countries from West and Central Africa has been stopped and those that depend on the business have become destitute.Damasak in Mobbar Local Government Area (LGA) and Bama LGA are center for beans farming and cereals production were destroyed and inhabitants displaced.Kalabalge, Konduga and Gamboru Ngala LGAs were the major producers of large pepper and beans in Nigeria, the insurgents had displaced the entire population, farming activities collapsed and plunged a lot people into poverty.All programmes towards the elimination of poverty in the affected areas are ravaged by insurgents since the population who are the target of the developmental projects are on the run, no programme could be achieve in a vacuum and under tense insecurity.
The cattle rustling in North West and Central Nigeria has deprived many farmers their farming implements, the cattle they use for farming and nomadic Fulani that rely on cattle rearing for a living.Clashes between herdsmen and farmers in states like Nasarawa, Benue, Kogi and Plateau states in central Nigeria has rendered many people destitute, people were dislocated from their villages for fear of attacks, leaving their farms and losing their livestock which is their main source of income thereby creating more burden on government and donor agencies hence making the elimination of poverty extremely difficult.The story is the same in Kaduna, Katsina and Zamfara states, the upsurge of cattle rustlers in Kamuku forest that cut across three states of Kaduna, Katsina and Zamfara which led to the formation of Operation Sharan Daji by the Nigerian Army has devastated the economy of the pastoralists and nomads in the affected areas.The rustlers have been attacking villages in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Funtua and Faskari Local Government Areas of Katsina state, destroying communities in Maru, Bungudu, Gusau, Talata Mafara Local Government Areas of Zamfara states, from 2010-2016, most of the farmers and herdsmen were either killed or displaced, thereby complicating their economic woes.
Information from surveys and assessments conducted by Government and International NGOs indicate that Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rates in children under five are above critical thresholds in the area under review.There is some access to potable water depending on the sites, although access is limited in many formal and informal IDP camps in Borno State.Some scholars such as Ghobarah and Russett (2003) argue that civil wars have long-term effects on civilian suffering.Analyzing the World Health Organization's measure of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), they stipulate that 8.01 million DALYs were lost in the year 1999 from civil wars which occurred during the period 1991-97.Ghobarah, Huth, Russett, and King (2004) maintain that, the additional burden of death and disability caused by the lingering effects of civil wars is nearly double the immediate and direct effect of these wars.Civil wars, they argue, "directly affect all the major contributors to health: exposure to disease, medical care, public health interventions, and overall socio-economic conditions" (Ghobarah et al., 2004: 871).
This has been the case in most of the areas razed down by the insurgents, militants and communal clashes in Nigeria.Most of the health care facilities, schools, water supply equipment and communication gadgets that are hitherto not sufficient were destroyed.In Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Nasarawa, Plateau, Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and parts of Akwa-Ibom states were affected by the insecurity and pose serious difficulty for the attainment of sustainable development goals.With regards to gender equality, violence against women has distinct characteristics from other forms of violence, and has far-reaching repercussions for those affected, their children, and families.Globally, 35.6% of women have ever experienced either non-partner sexual violence or physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner, or both (WHO, 2013:20) and even in high-income countries, is one of the last forms of violence to be tackled effectively.Analysis of the indicators for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women (MDG 3) indicates that improving the physical security of women would help the realization of other MDGs, and especially SDGs 5 (OECD, 2010: 7).In Africa, Armed violence and insecurity have demonstrable long-term, far-reaching, and costly effects on development.Violence reinforces social and economic inequalities, as well as political and economic marginalization, limits the role of women, and erodes the quality and capacities of state institutions, especially those related to the rule of law.The abduction of women and school girls by the insurgents in Nigeria where the girl-child education enrollment is low, has further worsen the effort by government and international organizations to close the gender disparity in educational attainment and income.
Apart from the unfavourable investment climate and stagnated external resources inflow into Nigeria, the Boko Haram's insecurity problems have caused a greater percentage of the internal resources and attention to be devoted only to the security sector.With the enormous resources at its disposal, leadership in Nigeria is confronted with the problem of focusing its expenditure priorities on security in disfavour of viable human capital development and other growth and productivity promoting sectors.This no doubt, poses a serious challenge to a dynamic framework for the provision of job options and the elimination of poverty, which of course constitutes the hallmark of sustainable development.This is made worse as leadership is preoccupied by waging and bent on winning the war against terrorism through huge budgetary allocations to the security sector.The wan against insurgents in the North East Tagged Operation Lafiya Dole, Operation Sharan Daji in North West and Operation Crocodile Smile in the Niger Delta has gulped a lot of money ordinarily would have been used for provision of basic social amenities.
The oil exploration activities and pipelines vandalism have caused severe environmental damage and climate change in the affected communities thus leading to massive destruction of farmlands, wild and marine organism.This has not been without dire social consequences on local communities of the Niger Delta which are doubly impoverished with attendant increase in abuse occasioned by struggle for survival.Gas flaring in the Niger Delta is a major source of Carbon and other gaseous substances that contaminate the air, land, shallow groundwater resources resulting in greenhouse effect and global warming process.The Environmental Impact Assessment recommendations for cleaning the Niger Delta has deprived the country enormous resources that could be channeled to address some infrastructural problems which was commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016.The region has been affected by the rising activities of the Niger Delta Avengers that warned all oil and federal government workers leave the region.Therefore, it reduced drastically oil production and export in Nigeria.The militants' activities stunt all effort for achieving sustainable environment in the region.And in a long run affected the economy of the country as it has dwarfed the revenue generation.Similarly, in the North East, landmine planted by the Boko Haram had killed and displaced people that are returning to their villages.Roadside bombings, suicide bombs and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) used by the Boko Haram in insurgents constitute a serious threat to environmental conversation.The explosives threaten the lives of all living organisms and destroyed the fertility of the arable.
In summary, severe military conflict in Africa is reported to cut life expectancy by four to six years and to contribute to a rise in infant mortality (Ghobarah et al., 2001).Conflict increases the threat of bodily harm, and destroys the social and political networks on which social cohesion is based, consequently increasing the incidence of social exclusion (OSAA 2005).Women and girls face the risk of rape and kidnapping; in many of Africa's conflicts this assault on women has been used as a weapon (OSAA, 2005).In Rwanda, for example at least 250,000 women were raped during the 1994 genocide, and many were deliberately infected with HIV/AIDS; 17 per cent of internally displaced women and girls surveyed in Sierra Leone had experienced sexual violence both war-and non-war-relatedincluding rape, torture and sexual slavery (Rehn & Johnson Sirleaf 2002).In Nigeria, too, the Boko Haram insurgents abducted more than 250 school girls in Chibok and other Local Government Areas of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.

Conclusion and Way Out
Armed conflicts are important obstacle to fulfilling the sustainable development goals in Africa.Achieving sustainable development in Africa is daunting task for all.Efforts should be geared towards addressing causes of violence, insecurity and other developmental challenges in the continent.Therefore, governments at all levels should ensure that rising poverty indices are reduced.A realistic social security programme should be initiated and pragmatically implemented to ensure that the people in the insecurity affected areas are reintegrated to the wider society.Peace is a prerequisite for human development and effective environmental management, both of which are critical to Africa achieving national and regional goals.The goals of sustainable development could not be achieved without peace and security in the continent and Nigeria in particular.To this end, concerted effort towards solving the protracted and emergent conflicts would facilitate and accelerate the realization of sustainable development goals in the continent.In addressing the problem of hunger and malnutrition, organic soil rebuilding, integrated pest management and efficient irrigation should be prioritized especially in the desert areas of Borno and Yobe states to boost farming in the areas displaced by Boko Haram.Cattle routes, grazing reserves and ranches for pastoralists should be provided to reduce herders-farmers' clashes in Nigeria.