National Integration and the Challenge of Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria

Nigeria has witnessed crises which have threatened its peace and security since independence. In the last few decades, especially from the usurpation of administrative powers by the military, Nigerian societies have been undergoing difficult times vis-à-vis ethnoreligious conflagrations that impact on the nation’s integration. This is as a result of the nature of interactions among the various amalgamated ethnoreligious and regional groups who pursue their objectives through different means to ensure they achieve their ends. These groups who have applied militant approach in carrying out their primary objectives include the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), the Arewa People’s Congress (APC), Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) as well as the current Boko Haram sect (our focus), the Fulani Herdsmen crisis, the Niger Delta Avengers, and the Indigenous People of Biafra. The study, hence, examines the challenge of the Boko Haram insurgency to national integration in Nigeria. To analyze this heinous phenomenon, the study made use of secondary data which include the review of published textbooks, journals, reports, etc., and the social-structural conflict approach was adopted as the tools of analysis for the study. The paper shows that Boko Haram insurgency has posed a great threat to the integration of the Nigerian state, just as it has undermined Nigeria’s development by causing the loss of human lives and economic resources, dislocation of people, and increased poverty rate. The paper, therefore, recommends the need for a context-specific and multi-layer conflict resolution, management and prevention initiative(s) encapsulating a broad-based local, regional and international collaboration between all concerned stakeholders; reforms in the nation’s educational and infrastructural sectors; and the governments’ need to place as their basic attention the welfare of the citizens through well guided policies so as to increase citizens’ living standards and support human capital development.