Insecurity, Insurgency and Poverty in Northern Nigeria: The Boko-Haram and banditry questions

Many people including women and students have been displaced; many have been kidnapped like the Chibok Girls, traumatized and their future shattered by the nefarious Boko-Haram insurgent group in Northeast and armed bandits in in Northwest. Other survivors whose houses have been burnt and part of their families killed have also been displaced with its unsavoury attendant consequences where poverty is the basic among others. So far the security agencies in the country such as the military, police e.t.c. have failed to secure the lives and properties of innocent Nigerians in the North-East in light of almost everyday occurrence of bombings and killings in the North. Whatever victory the security agencies claimed as reported in the newspapers is always neutralized by greater bombings, killings and destruction by dreaded Boko Haram sect, it is against the above background that this paper examine insecurity, insurgency and poverty in Northern Nigeria. This paper was anchored on state fragility and frustration theory, the paper adopted descriptive style, hence, this paper revealed that weak governance, porous borders, arms proliferations, illiteracy and large expanse of ungovemed space in Northern Nigeria are the basic factors that facilitated the spread of insurgency, armed banditry and other criminal activities in the Northern part of Nigeria. As a result, it recommends that government should increase budgetary allocation in the educational sector as well as improve standard of living in Northern Nigeria in order to have peace, order and stability.