Sociological Appraisal of Political Crimes among Political Actors in Benue State

Abstract

Political crimes such as political killings, rigging, political violence, imposition of candidates, ballot box snatching, thuggery, kidnapping among others have become hard knots to crack in Nigerian polity today. Leaders are being forced on the masses daily and even on members of political parties by godfathers that have taken over the party machineries perpetrating all kinds of criminality. The study is an attempt to sociologically appraise social problem of political crime in Benue State among political actors. Conflict theory is used as a theoretical model for the study which the study utilizes secondary sources of data while data was descriptively analyzed using mean, variance, standard deviation with the aid of tables and charts. Findings suggest political crimes exist in Benue State with attendant socio-economic consequences and required aggressive efforts of the criminal justice system and security agents to tackle.