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Boko Haram Insurgency and the Nigerian Federation: A Socio-Political Analysis of Causation and Strategy for Peace and Security

The phenomenon of anti-state militant movements is not new to the Nigerian federation. Just a few years after the birth of the Nigerian State, a militant group under the leadership of Adaka Boro, an ex-police officer, attempted to create the Niger Delta Republic out of the nascent federation. From 1967 to 1970, the Federal Government was locked in a devastating civil war with eastern region secessionists intent on carving out the State of Biafra out of Nigeria. Between 1980 and 1983, the Maitasine uprising unleashed large-scale terror and destruction of lives and property in the northern part of the country. Previously peaceful agitations in the Niger Delta over economic and political marginalization snowballed into an armed conflict between militant groups and the Federal Government from the 1990s, and only began to simmer down in just about two years ago. During the same period, the Oodua People Congress (OPC), a Yoruba ethnic militia emerged as a protest movement against General Ibrahim Babangida’s annulment of the June 12, 1993, Presidential elections widely acknowledged to be free and fair and won by Chief Moshood Abiola, a Yoruba politician and business mogul. OPC eventually became a thorn in the flesh of the Nigerian state for a long while. In addition, the Bakassi militant group emerged as a resistance force in response to the grave insecurity of lives and property orchestrated by a so-called “Mafia” in major markets in South East Nigeria. However, the Boko Haram insurgent movement currently rocking the country is unique in terms of its avowed objectives, organization, tenacity, sophisticated strategy, weaponry and audacious operations. Causes of the insurgency have received diverse explanations from various quarters overtime. While some observers conceive of Boko Haram as an extremist Islamist sect bent on Islamizing Nigeria (or at least Northern Nigeria) by any means, some others see it as a mere nihilist movement with the sole intent of blood letting, destruction, panic and chaos. Yet, in some other quarters, Boko Haram is viewed as the epitome of the political agenda of certain Northern elements. In its response to the insurgency, the Federal Government of Nigeria adopted a two-pronged conflict management strategy: force and diplomacy. But the crisis persists, unabated, living in its wake wholesale destruction of lives and property, palpable tension and fear of the unexpected. This paper is a socio-political analysis of the Boko Haram insurgency and government’s strategy to restore peace and security. The study shall also explore alternative strategies that could enthrone peace and security in the affected areas, and avert the spread of the insurgency to other regions of the country. The study adopts the historical research methodology of intellectual discourse. Research data was obtained from both primary and secondary sources. Sources of primary data comprise of oral interviews, while the secondary data consist of books, journal articles, newspapers, magazines, etc. The study concludes that the basic causes of the Boko Haram insurgency are an admixture of complex socio-economic and political factors which require appropriate immediate and long-term government policies for the restoration of peace and security.