Impact of Youth Restiveness on the Growth of Small and medium Enterprises Scale in Kaduna State
Abstract
Youth restiveness—manifested as protests that turn disruptive, cultism, gang clashes, banditry, and road blockades—has become a binding constraint on enterprise in several parts of Northern Nigeria. Kaduna State, a commercial hub with dense market networks and a large youth population, is especially exposed. This article examines how youth restiveness affects the growth trajectory of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Kaduna State and proposes a replicable framework for diagnosis and policy response. The paper offers three core novelties: (1) a ward-level Youth Restiveness Pressure Index (Y-RPI) that fuses conflict event data with measured disruptions to markets and mobility; (2) a mechanism-aware identification strategy that separates demand shock, cost shock, credit tightening, and labour-supply disruption; and (3) a triangulated mixed-methods design combining modern staggered difference-in-differences with synthetic control at the ward level and a list-experiment survey module to reduce social desirability bias around sensitive coping behaviours (e.g., paying informal levies). Drawing on national MSME statistics, Kaduna State plans, and recent empirical studies on insecurity and firms in Nigeria, we hypothesize economically and statistically meaningful adverse effects on sales, employment, reinvestment, and survival, with disproportionate harm to female-owned, retail/hospitality, and informal firms—and partial mitigation where firms deploy digital channels, cash buffers, or are embedded in strong market associations. We conclude with a resilient growth agenda for Kaduna that links youth engagement, risk-sharing finance, safe market access, and early-warning analytics.
