National Security, Religious Anarchism and the Politics of Amnesty in Nigeria

The Nigerian state is caught in the crossfire of national insecurity arising from the insurgency of various rogue groups. The most prominent of these groups, and one whose activities have had far-reaching destabilising effect on the polity, is the Boko Haram sect. The Boko Haram sect, which uses the Taliban- and al-Qaeda-style terrorist tactics of suicide bombing and targeted assassination, is responsible for between 3000 and 4000 deaths since it declared war and engaged in armed insurgency in 2009. The sect has targeted and bombed state institutions, the United Nations building as well as many Christian worship centres in furtherance of its avowed objective of deploying terror to achieve the islamisation of the Nigerian state. Relying on secondary sources of data, the paper interrogates the force theory that underpins Nigeria’s security engineering and contends that the continued insecurity in the polity is a demonstration of its ineffectiveness. The paper also contends that the proposition by the Federal Government to grant amnesty to the Boko Haram sect is not as simplistic as it appears as it transcends the narrow definitional criteria of bartering forgiveness for peace. While the paper is critical of the proposed amnesty programme, it advocates a holistic approach that incorporates other issues that are promotive of justice, morality and ethicalness in the polity