State Failure And Terrorism: Thoughts on Nigeria’s Festering BOKO Haram Crisis

Abstract

Nigeria has been enmeshed ultimately in the aspiration towards wrenching itself from economic debacle with which it is now more identified than its prospects. Energy is being dissipated to develop institutions and structures with the capacity to ensure economic growth, equitable distribution of national wealth, political stability and accountability. The attainment of those aspirations requires reduction of threats, actual and potential, that are capable of generating insecurity. The Boko Haram crisis thus set the country on retrogressive rather than progressive match toward achieving improved standard of living. To combat the Boko Haram menace, in view of theoretical leaning that blames uprising against government on internal configuration of the society, thereby emphasising the physical aspect of such uprising, the Nigerian Government is bent on crushing out the group through superior military might as it did during the 1967-1970 civil war. This paper argues that, no doubt, Nigeria’s socio-economic configuration is capable of engendering terrorism, Boko Haram is not a formation as vanguard of the people. It examines the activities of the Boko Haram group vis-a-vis the social conflict theory and the theory of fundamentalism and reached the conclusion that war against Boko Haram is more a war of the mind than a physical war and to be sure of total victory over the group, government must engage in that war from fundamentalist perspective.