POLITICAL ECONOMY OF VIOLENCE AND COUNTERINSURGENCIES:

Description

The Nigerian state has been wracked by many scattered and episodic violence following its political independence from the British in 1960. In recent times, the Boko Haram and ISWAP insurgencies have mainly attracted public and scholarly attention, although the resource-based conflict in the Niger Delta still offers important insights for academics and policymakers. Building on the conceptual framework of limited access order (LAO) and insights from several cases of protracted violent conflicts in other African states, the book highlights underlying logic undermining counterinsurgencies in Nigeria. The analysis focuses primarily on the 2009 amnesty programme in the Niger Delta, which is still regarded as the most expensive and most comprehensive conflict intervention measure in West Africa. I argue that the 2009 amnesty programme in the Niger Delta as well as other conflict intervention measures in Nigeria including Operation Safe Corridor in the northeast are based on a conflict containment logic in which eliteskeep violence under control through a political manipulative process.