The Nexus between Bad Governance, Ungoverned Spaces and Terrorism:
Analysing the Boko Haram Insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin through the
lenses of the Social Contract Theory
- Felix Oyosoro,
- Robert Tayimlong,
- Innocent Pikirayi
Abstract
The Lake Chad Basin is one of the most fragile and politically unstable
regions in Africa. This is largely due to the insurgency of Boko Haram
which broke out in Nigeria's north-eastern region and later spilled over
to northern Cameroon, western Chad and south-eastern Niger. By 2020,
approximately 37000 people had died and 2.6 million displaced as a
consequence of the crisis. The conflict has undermined security in vast
human habitats, destroyed billions of dollars' worth of critical public
goods, damaged livelihoods and left millions of affected populations
without access to basic services. The challenge in academic and
peacebuilding spaces has been to dissect and tackle the principal causes
of the conflict. Whereas there is substantial literature on the
religious, political, social, economic and environmental drivers of the
insurgency in Nigeria, much is not known about the governance
environment that facilitated its outbreak and spread. To understand
this, this article adopts the social contract theory to critically
examine the correlation between bad governance, ungoverned spaces and
the insurgency in the affected countries. The paper uses secondary
sources to supplement primary data from key informant interviews and
focus group discussions in Nigeria's Borno State, Chad's Lake Province,
Cameroon's Far North Region, and Niger's Diffa Region.