Non-military approach against terrorism in Nigeria: deradicalization strategies and challenges in countering Boko Haram
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Non‑military approach against terrorism in Nigeria: deradicalization strategies and challenges in countering Boko Haram Hakeem Onapajo1 · Kemal Ozden1
© Springer Nature Limited 2020
Abstract For a successful counter-terrorism campaign, scholars and conflict practitioners emphasize a combination of military and non-military strategies. While a military strategy is useful to weaken the military capacity of terrorists, non-military strategies including negotiations, deradicalization, disarmament, rehabilitation, reintegration, and other soft measures are advanced to tackle the underlying problems fuelling terrorism to achieve a long-term peaceful outcome. Within the non-military approach, deradicalization program is very significant, especially in combating religion- or ideology-motivated terrorism, given that the strategy not only aims to deconstruct extremist ideologies but also facilitates the rehabilitation and reintegration of ex-combatants and victims of violent extremism. This study analyzes the deradicalization program of the Nigerian government towards countering Boko Haram. It is argued that the design and implementation of the program have structural weaknesses that may further contribute to the problem of violent extremism. Therefore, the paper recommends measures that can strengthen the deradicalization program for a successful counter-terrorism operation. Keywords Deradicalization · Radicalization · Boko Haram · Non-military strategy · Nigeria
Introduction The military approach has increasingly been proven ineffective to successfully end terrorism. Based on wide-ranging experiences in different countries, it has been discovered that the military approach has contributed more to the atmosphere of violence arising from terrorism and caused extensive human rights violations (Human * Hakeem Onapajo [email protected] 1
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria Vol.:(0123456789)
H. Onapajo, K. Ozden
Rights Watch 2003; Ginger 2005; Almqvist 2005). For this reason, non-military approaches are increasingly being advocated as an alternative or additional strategy to effectively address the growing problem of terrorism and insurgency. It is convincingly argued that non-military strategies including political negotiations, deradicalization, disengagement, amnesty, and reintegration programs have better potential to tackle the primary causes of terrorism and produce sustainable peace (Ginty 2013; Connable 2010). Given the realization that ideology has played a prominent role in radicalizing individuals and groups to engage in terrorism or violent extremism, deradicalization (as a non-military strategy) has become a useful anti-terrorism approach not only to combat terrorism but also as a preventive measure against the spread of extremist ideologies (Rabasa et al. 2010). Despite its usefulness, deradicalization is a long and complex process that is society specific, given the diverse circumstances responsible for extremism and terrorism (
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