Youth Radicalization and Violent Extremism in North-East Nigeria: An Assessment of Risk Factors and Government’s Responses

Abstract: This study assesses the problem of youth radicalization and violent extremism in the northeast region of Nigeria. The study aimed to identify and explain the major factors that make these youths in the region vulnerable to the radical ideologies of Boko Haram, how these factors have interacted and resulted in them being sympathetic to terrorism in the region or being actively involved in the act. With these factors in mind, the study also aimed to critically access the government’s non-militarized response to violent extremism in order to ascertain whether or not these factors that have lured the youths into violent extremism in the first place have been taken into consideration in the design and implementation of such programs. Designed as a case study, the study relies on secondary data for its analysis and finds that poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, the almajeri system of Islamic education, and strong religious beliefs have been major risk factors for radicalization in the region. Also, findings show that the government’s deradicalization programs are flawed in their design and implementation, do not aim to address the root causes of radicalization into extremism, and give preferential treatment to repentant terrorists at the expense of the actual victims. I conclude by arguing that deradicalization in the region is in some way having a counter-effect (serving as an incentive for people to get radicalized into extremism) and also recommend further research on this with a possible comparative focus on other deradicalization programs in the country, past and present.