ONE NATION UNDER SIEGE? BOKO HARAM AND THE NIGER DELTA AVENGERS PHENOMENA IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Violent conflict within multi-ethnic and multi-religious countries is almost as given, although not all multi-ethnic or multi-religious societies are violent. The gamut of those riddled with violent conflict ranges from Yugoslavia and USSR to Northern Ireland and the Basque country, from Rwanda to Darfur, and Indonesia to Fiji. Numerous bitter and deadly conflicts have been fought along ethnic and religious lines. Nigeria is only such country today, fighting for its survival at two fronts or against two incompatible oppositions at the same time. This has heightened the state and nature of insecurity in the country. Using social movements and protracted social conflict as theoretical frameworks, this paper seeks to argue along the trajectory that Nigeria is presently experiencing two types of terrorist insurgency – political (Avengers) and religious (Boko Haram). The paper’s main argument flows from the fact that people see themselves in many different ways that constitute a form of identity which can be fluid, short-lived and insignificant or more permanent and more significant personally and socially. However, the importance which people ascribe to different aspects of their identity varies according to context and over time, but where violent conflicts are mobilised and organised by identity, such identities must be sufficiently important enough to make people prepared to fight, kill and even die in the name of that identity. The escalation of the politics of identity leading to a somewhat permanent state of insecurity makes the paper to wonder whether the Nigerian state may survive this bombardments and assault on its security and political stability.