How Insurgent Groups Emerge: The political process in democratic Nigeria

How did two non-state actors from significantly different regions develop into insurgent organizations in Nigeria after its return to democratic rule on 29 May 1999? Although the northeast and Niger Delta regions are poles apart in historical, material, and socio-cultural structures, they bore the rise of Boko Haram and the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force. The emergence of violent non-state actors in both areas at about the same time, despite their substantial differences, is puzzling and offers an appropriate opportunity to probe the process and mechanism of insurrectionary group emergence in Nigeria since the new democratic dispensation. Studies have emphasized certain grievances, resources, and religious ideology as causal factors in the rise of guerrilla groups. Despite the contributions of these theories they fail to capture the relatively nonrebellious inception of these groups. They also gloss over the initial cooperation these organizations had with local political elites. Other challenges with the existing approaches include the often country-wide narrative which disallows a within-state comparison and the failure to account for timing and location. To address these gaps, this thesis builds on the patron-client model and the Political Process theory to develop the Political Relevance model. This new model focuses on the way political interactions that took place between local politicians and the would-be insurgent groups facilitated the evolution of the social organizations from non-violence to violence. It espouses a four-step process that argues that rebel organizations emerge from a fissure in an initial mutually beneficial relationship between local political elites and a politically relevant group.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Politics and International Relations

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Iyekekpolo, Wisdom Oghosa

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Wilson, Chris
• Gregory, Thomas

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/56326

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/56326