By Nwaiwu, Fidelis Chibuzo
This study set out to investigate community participation in security management in Enugu South Local Government Area of Enugu State. Data for the study were collected using structured questionnaire administered to 625 respondents selected via cluster and random sampling techniques. Simple frequencies and percentages were used to analyze the research questions while the chi-square statistics was used to test the two null hypotheses. Findings of the study revealed that there is high incidence of insecurity in Enugu South LGA which manifests in forms of armed robbery, car snatching, burglary, kidnapping/hostage taking, and mob actions/demonstrations. This high incidence of insecurity has led to proliferation of community based security organization in addition to the existing public conventional security outfits. Results of our study revealed that the conventional security agencies have not been able to manage security in the communities of Enugu South Local Government Area of Enugu State, Nigeria. This has engendered proliferation of community based security management agencies like vigilante groups and neighbourhood watch. Contrary to recent reports, this has not improved the participation of community members in management of security because the elites in the community hijack the community based security management agencies and limit their function to reporting of threats to security and incidence of insecurity to security agencies.