No retreat, no surrender: understanding the religious terrorism of Boko Haram in Nigeria

Abstract

Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group from northeastern Nigeria, has caused severe destruction in Nigeria since 2009. The threat posed by the extremist group has been described by the present Nigerian President as worse than that of Nigeria’s civil war in the 1960s. A major drawback in the Boko Haram literature to date is that much effort has been spent to remedy the problem in lieu of understanding it. This paper attempts to bridge this important gap in existing literature by exploring the role of religion as a force of mobilisation as well as an identity marker in Nigeria, and showing how the practice and perception of religion are implicated in the ongoing terrorism of Boko Haram. In addition, the paper draws on the relative deprivation theory to understand why Boko Haram rebels and to argue that religion is not always a sufficient reason for explaining the onset of religious terrorism