A Review of the Counterinsurgency Approaches in Nigeria

This concept paper explored and analyzed the various counterinsurgency approaches adopted both by the Nigeria government, international partners and community base groups in the combating the violent insurgency of Boko Haram in the country’s north. The article revealed that Nigeria adopted both carrot and stick approach in its operation. The former involved political campaigns of dialogue to ceasefire. The later approach is a violent aggression by the military and quasi-military forces aimed at annihilating the insurgent fighters and their alleged collaborators. Whereas the application of the two approaches is blended rather than sequential, the military aggression however remained the dominant campaign of the government. The article argued that the predominance of the military campaign undermined the unprecedented successes of the government. The indiscriminate force targeting both the insurgent and the population suppressed the chances of accessing timely and credible intelligence about the insurgents movements, their hideout and identification of their potential target. As panacea, the article suggest Nigeria government and its counterinsurgency partners to resort to the people centred campaign through enhancing governance through the provision of basic necessities of livelihood to withdraw the support of the population on the insurgent rather than sticking to the security only campaign.