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9 - Informalization & its discontents The informal economy & Islamic radicalization in northern Nigeria
- Edited by Abdul Raufu Mustapha, Kate Meagher
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- Book:
- Overcoming Boko Haram
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 21 March 2020
- Print publication:
- 17 January 2020, pp 244-274
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
The economic factors underlying violent radicalization are often less clear cut than political and religious factors. High levels of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy in northern Nigeria have been contrasted with lower levels of deprivation in southern Nigeria, particularly in the South West of the country. However, very few poor northern Nigerian Muslims have succumbed to radicalization, and not all Islamic radicals are poor, raising questions about why some poor northern Muslims become radicalized while others do not, and what other factors intervene in the process of radicalization. This study moves away from a general poverty perspective on drivers of radicalization to focus more explicitly on how dynamics of economic informality have shaped and sometimes mitigated radicalization processes, often in unexpected ways.
In northern Nigeria, a particularly negative convergence of high rates of population growth, low levels of educational attainment and a collapse of formal economic opportunities in the wake of market reforms have devastated the local economy. In the Nigerian context where few can afford open unemployment, the stresses of poverty and joblessness are largely played out in the informal economy. In Nigeria's large informal economy, which accounts for 80 per cent of the non-agricultural employment, poverty and disaffection interact with ethnically and religiously based forms of economic organization, creating tensions and opportunities that cast important light on the trajectories of Islamic radicalization (ILO 2018; Meagher 2009, 2013). An informal-economy-centred analysis offers a more complex understanding of how poverty and unemployment interact with issues of competition, disaffection, religious networks and experiences of the state. Instead of focusing on the failure of the formal economy to provide jobs, this study will concentrate on the radicalizing and counter-radicalizing implications of structures and networks within the informal economy, which shapes how the overwhelming majority of northern Nigeria's formally unemployed actually live, work and experience the state.
This chapter will explore whether, in absorbing the unemployed and disaffected, the informal economy serves as an incubator of radicalization or as a buffer against it. Attention will focus on how high unemployment has interacted with shifting patterns of educational attainment, political claims, and new religious movements to restructure channels of economic opportunity and political expression among the informally employed.
11 - Conclusion Toward a whole-of-society approach to counter-radicalizationAll Contributors
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- By Sarkin Kano, Kate Meagher, Kate Meagher, M. Sani Umar, Abubakar K. Monguno, Ibrahim Umara, Rahmane Idrissa, Julie G. Sanda, David Ehrhardt, M. Sani Umar, Zainab Usman, Sherine El Taraboulsi-Mccarthy, Khadija Gambo Hawaja, Murray Last, Kate Meagher, Ibrahim Haruna Hassan, M. Sani Umar, David Ehrhardt
- Edited by Abdul Raufu Mustapha, Kate Meagher
-
- Book:
- Overcoming Boko Haram
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 21 March 2020
- Print publication:
- 17 January 2020, pp 304-324
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
As the Boko Haram insurgency heads into its second decade, it seems no quick end is in sight. What are the possible scenarios for the future trajectory of Boko Haram, and in particular what is its endgame? While predicting the future is a very hazardous business, plausible endgame scenarios can be envisioned based on reflection on the metamorphoses of Boko Haram, careful analysis of the dynamics of its current situation, and prognosis of its emergent trends. The formal declaration of the Boko Haram Caliphate and its territorial control over much of Borno State are no more. Yet the ‘technical military defeat’ proclaimed by President Muhammad Buhari in 2015 has not prevented Boko Haram from carrying out attacks not only in rural areas, but in big towns and even military bases, often killing Nigerian soldiers – as many as 100 soldiers in one attack. Negotiations leading to the release of Boko Haram captives in exchange for freeing incarcerated leaders of the insurgency came about more than a year after the proclamation of the technical defeat. It seems that decisive defeat leading to complete surrender and total cessation of hostilities is not on the immediate horizon. Yet what scenario is likely to unfold?
This chapter explores this question by drawing insights from the literature on the growth, decline, and end of past insurgent insurgencies and civil wars. Theoretically, one may argue that there are only a few possible outcomes to an insurgency: the government may defeat the insurgents; the insurgents may defeat the government; both parties may reach a negotiated settlement; there may be a stalemate; or the insurgency may transform into something else, such as organized crime. We suggest that rather than one distinct ending, Boko Haram is likely to continue its previous patterns of transformations and factionalization, precluding decisive outcomes. Unless distinctively different approaches are taken by the state, likely endgames include a negotiated settlement with some factions, the further entrenchment of the war economy with its continuous menacing of rural areas by others, and some elements potentially becoming absorbed into the global terrorist networks of the Islamic State.