The Dynamics of the Globalization of Terrorism in West Africa

Probing the Case of Nigeria’s Boko Haram

Abstract

The world has witnessed increased interdependence in the last two decades due to globalization. The main driving forces of this process are technology, policy, competition, profit maximization and the impacts of domestic economic relations towards global market conditions and practices. Nigeria in our globalizing world shares from the poverty that globalization brings to the developing nations and also from the easy accessibility of arms and weapons by both states and individuals across the globe.  The ability of Boko Haram to easily access arms and weapons coupled with the  links  it shares with other international terrorist organisations is a handwork of globalization and that have left Nigeria and international communities with  diverse security threats almost on a daily basis at quite  alarming rate. The thrust of this paper is to examine the internationalization of Boko Haram activities from the context of globalization and haps on the involvement of the international communities in the efforts to tackle Boko Haram insurgency. Instrumental theory of violence, secondary method of data collections and content analysis approach were employed to explain this phenomenon. Indeed, globalization of trade, information technology and finance has had little positive and high level of negative impacts on the rising security threats as a result of Boko Haram activities and myriads of security threats associated with it. In that regard, this paper among other recommendation put forward suggested the need to effectively address the multi-layers of this threat and that requires the cooperative engagement of Nigeria’s neighbours and international partners.