IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ctwqxx/v37y2016i12p2211-2228.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Boko Haram: understanding the context

Author

Listed:
  • Wisdom Oghosa Iyekekpolo

Abstract

Boko Haram insurgency has caused the death and displacement of thousands of Nigerians. Its means of terror has evolved from the use of crude weapons to bombs, kidnappings and the use of children as suicide bombers. Its reach has expanded beyond Nigeria into neighbouring West African countries and it has pledged allegiance to Al-Qaida and Islamic State. To address this security concern, its cause should first be ascertained. This paper argues that to do this, Boko Haram should be located in northern Nigerian historical context/environment. This paper reviews economic greed and grievance, extreme religious ideology and political opportunity in historic insurgencies in northern Nigeria. It finds that while the interplay of different factors shaped these insurgencies; it was political opportunity that ignited their onsets. Finally, the article submits that as long as these factors remain the same, military quelling of Boko Haram will not prevent a re-emergence of its likes.

Suggested Citation

  • Wisdom Oghosa Iyekekpolo, 2016. "Boko Haram: understanding the context," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(12), pages 2211-2228, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:37:y:2016:i:12:p:2211-2228
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2016.1177453
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01436597.2016.1177453
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01436597.2016.1177453?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. George AGWU, 2020. "The Boko Haram conflict and food insecurity: does resilience capacity matter?," Working Papers 2019-2020_4, CATT - UPPA - Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, revised Jul 2020.
    2. Odozi, John Chiwuzulum & Oyelere, Ruth Uwaifo, 2019. "Conflict Exposure and Economic Welfare in Nigeria," GLO Discussion Paper Series 334, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    3. Chiwuzulum Odozi, John & Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth, 2019. "Violent Conflict Exposure in Nigeria and Economic Welfare," IZA Discussion Papers 12570, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Uduak Akpan & Salisu Isihak, 2020. "The Geography of Poverty in Nigeria," Working Papers 20/035, European Xtramile Centre of African Studies (EXCAS).
    5. Gian Maria Campedelli & Mihovil Bartulovic & Kathleen M. Carley, 2019. "Pairwise similarity of jihadist groups in target and weapon transitions," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 245-270, July.
    6. George Abuchi Agwu, 2020. "The Boko Haram conflict and food insecurity: Does resilience capacity matter?," Working Papers hal-02902311, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:37:y:2016:i:12:p:2211-2228. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/ctwq .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.