The Resurgence Of Boko Haram Attacks: Implications For the Nigerian State

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo
One of the major backdrops upon which the Buhari administration came to power was the promise to defeat or rather crush Boko Haram within the first three months of APC’s government. There is no doubt that the Boko Haram insurgency group has been at war with the Nigerian State for about seven years now. The major reason for the insurgency is to create a pure Islamic Caliphate in the core north of Nigeria. For the insurgents, the secularity of the Nigerian State has become a huge hindrance to the puritanical pontifications of Islam and only the creation of a pure Islamic state would pacify them. For them, western education is evil and a major source of pollution to Islam. 

It was for this reason that the group initiated its earth-scorch policy of annihilating anything in its path to achieving this goal. The result has been the massive destruction of lives and property and crippling of the economy of the core north. The government of former President Jonathan was perceived to have been timid and clueless in containing the scourge of the insurgent group and in the run-in to the 2015 general elections in Nigeria, the issue of Boko Haram became an alluring political campaign matter.