Terrorism and Insurgency in Nigeria and her neighboring countries: the Boko Haram Experience

The U.S State department defined terrorism as “the premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against a noncombatant targets by sub-national groups”. It went further to define terrorism as “the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or to intimidate governments in the pursuit of goals that are political, religious or ideological. In light of this, the expansion of Boko Haram insurgency beyond the Nigeria boundary to include its neighbors, has now left Nigeria, and other West African countries and the international community to tackle such actions of Boko Haram, seeing to it that it is not just an internal problem for Nigeria but also a global crisis which requires all necessary support to ensuring lasting peace in Nigeria. Therefore, making use of the historical method of discuss and analysis, the paper adopted a qualitative research methodology approach. The paper concluded that the future security of Nigeria and the sub-region lies in consensual, well coordinated, well-structured and well-resourced interventions by national and regional forces. But more than that, the overall success in resolving the Boko Haram threat calls for sustained measures aimed at intricately addressing the social, economic and political issues that galvanized terrorist radicalization that gave Boko Haram a foot hold in Nigeria.