Entrepreneurship under Siege: A Conceptual Analysis of Challenges and Socioeconomic Repercussions in Nigeria’s Banditry-Affected Northwest

Abstract

This paper offers a conceptual analysis of the profound challenges confronting entrepreneurship in Nigeria’s banditry-affected northwest geopolitical zone and the ensuing socioeconomic repercussions. Moving beyond conventional risk-based interpretations, the study reconceptualizes chronic banditry not as an external shock but as a constitutive force that systematically reconfigures market institutions, entrepreneurial agency, and local economic order. Drawing on institutional voids theory, resilience theory, and the political economy of conflict economies, the paper synthesizes insights from entrepreneurship studies, conflict research, and policy reports to develop an integrated framework for understanding enterprise “under siege.” It argues that banditry generates institutional collapse, fragments markets, normalizes extortion as a de facto tax, and forces entrepreneurs into distress-driven survival strategies often mislabeled as resilience. These micro-level adaptations cascade into macro-level consequences—including youth recruitment into banditry, agrarian collapse, rural displacement, and the emergence of a predation-based informal economy. The study concludes that mainstream entrepreneurship theory—premised on stable institutions and opportunity-driven agency—is inadequate for violently contested settings, and therefore calls for a conflict-sensitive paradigm grounded in the realities of the Global South. To address this, the paper recommends the development of context-specific theoretical models and the co-design of security-economic interventions by state authorities, financial institutions, and local governance structures to disrupt cycles of predation and restore entrepreneurial viability.