Insurgency and War in Nigeria: Regional Fracture and the Fight Against Boko Haram

Description

Boko Haram is the major threat to the Nigerian state, and has emerged as a destabilizing factor across sub-Saharan Africa. This is now a major focus of global policy-making, as between 2013 and 2014 insurgency-related deaths in Nigeria exceeded those in Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is the first to focus on the military nature of Boko Haram, the reasons for its success in those specific regions of the Chad basin it operates in and a detailed history of the Nigerian army's counter-insurgency - with whom, uniquely, the author has spent research time. The book identifies and analyses the battles and skirmishes on the front line, as well as unearthing a wider explanation for Boko Haram's military success and the causes of the instability in the region.

Akali Omeni (PhD, Kings College London) is Lecturer at the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews, UK. He was previous a Lecturer in African Politics at the University of Leicester, UK. He has previously worked with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and was co-chair of the Africa Research Group at King's College London (affiliated to their world-leading War Studies department). In 2019, Omeni won the prestigious "Rising Star" excellence award at King's College London. His other previously published books include Policing and Politics in Nigeria.

Omeni's highly original study focuses ... on [explaining] the group's success over the last few decades as a fighting force. ...The book also includes a useful discussion of the group's relationship with the Islamic State. * Foreign Affairs Magazine * [The book is] without doubt essential reading, offering substantial and empirically grounded insights on this feared group to scholars, policy-makers, military planners and strategists, and practitioners. * International Affairs * A well-informed, valuable analysis of Boko Haram's military and ideological evolution, the environment facilitating these processes, and Nigerian security forces counterinsurgency challenges ... Akali Omeni has produced a wide-ranging and insightful book that provides a detailed analysis of a resilient insurgent threat and the efforts undertaken to counter it. * Civil Wars * Omeni combines emotional access, journalistic integrity and intellectual rigour to produce an important and necessary book about this under-rated, and little understood insurgency which remains the biggest threat to the most powerful black nation in the world. He has written it with great attention to little known details, proving invaluable, often ignored insights into the insurgency, the military and the region. * Funmi Iyanda TV Host/Writer * "This original and insightful book explains why the Nigerian military has struggled to contain the rise of Boko Haram - a highly resilient insurgency in West Africa, that has evolved from terrorist roots to develop regular military forces, hold territory, and ally with Islamic State. An important addition to the comparative study of counterinsurgency failure." * Professor Theo Farrell Executive Dean, Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts University of Wollongong, Australia * "This is an extensive examination of the Boko Haram insurgency, including the group's military capabilities and strategies and the nature of the Nigerian counterinsurgency response. The book charts the evolution of a seemingly non-violent sect into a deadly jihadi force that has sustained a decade-long conflict. It makes for essential reading because of its unique insight into the operational nature of the Boko Haram conflict." * Tomi Oladipo - Africa Security Correspondent, BBC News * "This is a deep and well researched book highlighting the challenges faced by the Nigerian military struggling to contain the rampaging Boko Haram - A deadly and vicious terrorist organization that has for a decade bedevilled Nigeria's North East with its affiliation to Al-Qaida and now Islamic State, and other terrorist organizations in the Sahel. Boko Haram's activities have metamorphosed from terrorist acts to full blown insurgency capturing and holding the ground. " This book will add to the literature of understanding Counter Insurgency dimensions of both its failure and success and will surely be a veritable reference for both scholars and practitioners." * Major General Sarkin Yaki Bello Rtd Former Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism Office of the National Security Adviser Abuja- NIGERIA * "A useful book to help understand the resilience of Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria and why the Nigerian military has struggled to contain it." * Dr Alex Vines OBE Head, Africa Programme Chatham House * "This timely new book casts important new light on the development and resilience of Boko Haram. In charting the group's ongoing evolution, it draws intriguing new lessons about the theory and practice of counterinsurgency. A welcome and valuable addition to the literature on contemporary African security." * Professor Jonathan Hill Director of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies King's College London, UK * In this carefully crafted book on counter-insurgency operations in North East Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin countries, Akali Omeni provides an insightful study of the evolution and resilience of a complex insurgent group, Boko Haram. The book provides a strong empirical case for critiquing counter-insurgency theory by drawing on an in-depth study of the everyday tactical and operational strategies of Boko Haram, and explains why the Nigerian military is still struggling to contain an evolving complex threat to national and regional peace and security. * Cyril Obi, Social Science Research Council, New York *