CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Despite government efforts, Nigeria’s security situation is deteriorating. The unprecedented rise in violent attacks defies analysts’ long-held belief that the northwest is more stable than the northeast, despite the fact that the northwest is smaller, less well-governed in some regions, and has lower levels of human growth.
Banditry is being used to characterize the growing instability in the northwest, which includes vicious attacks on local communities and kidnappings by criminal gangs. More evidence suggests, however, that the government is simplifying the dynamics. In reality, North Western Nigeria has become a safe haven for a growing number of terrorist groups, including the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, a splinter of Boko Haram known as the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), and the Fulani herdsmen of West Africa, who were once ranked fourth in the world.