Rethinking Counterinsurgency | A Case Study of Boko Haram in Nigeria

A thesis submitted by Samson Eyituoyo Liolio, Nigeria. Abstract: "The issue of Boko Haram in Nigeria has become a threat to both internal and international security with ever-growing violence and attacks on security forces, civilians, churches, media houses as well as international bodies such as the United Nations. With the increased numbers of cadres, improved and sophisticated weaponry, suicide bombing and well organised guerrilla tactics, Boko Haram’s challenge to the Nigerian state now also stretches across the entire 36 states of Nigeria, thus affecting its economic and social-political growth. With an aim of finding a solution that could lead to success in fending off the Boko Haram insurgency, this thesis explores the economic and political-cum-military forces at play between the Nigerian state and Boko Haram. It tries to investigate the apparatus of counterinsurgency earlier employed by the Nigerian state, thus also seeking to explain the possible counterproductive result or failure of counterinsurgency."