Violent Extremism and Development in the Lake Chad Region, 1960-2015: Exploring the nexus between underdevelopment and insurgency

The book analysed the state of socio-economic developments in the Lake Chad region prior to the evolution of Boko Haram insurgency as well as the trends in the evolution of the Boko Haram group and manifestations violent extremism by the group with a view to exploring how these variables interplayed in the emergence of security crisis in the area. To achieve this, an interdisciplinary research method was employed in the study. This method involved the integration of data, information, techniques, tools, concepts and theories from the disciplines of history, geography, hydrology, economics, and sociology. The books holds that that the key push factors of insurgency and violent extremism in the Lake Chad region include the high level of youth unemployment, unmitigated poverty, perception of injustice, horizontal inequalities, extreme Salafist indoctrination, human-rights violations, poor social service infrastructures, political exclusion, political corruption, sustained government neglect, lack of effective and efficient security architecture and rejection of the Nigerian political system by some dissidents.