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THE SOCIAL DYNAMICS OF NIGERIA’S BOKO HARAM INSURGENCY: FRESH INSIGHTS FROM THE SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY
ABSTRACT
Although the on-going terrorism of the ‘Nigerian Taliban’ from northeastern Nigeria, commonly known as ‘Boko Haram’ (‘Western education is sin’), has elicited numerous works, there is yet to be a more constructive analysis that adequately accounts for the social dynamics of the group’s identity and belonging in the Nigerian polity. This paper is the first systematic attempt to draw on the social identity theory (SIT) to develop a conceptual discourse that explains the causal relationship between religion in Nigeria as a force of mobilisation as well as an identity marker, and shows how its politics, practice and perception are implicated in the escalating terrorism of Boko Haram. Along the way, the paper considers the social dynamics of poverty and relative economic deprivation in northern and especially northeastern Nigeria, and their contributions to the spiralling violence of Boko Haram. Keywords: Identity, Religion, Boko Haram, Poverty, Northern Nigeria