Thesis (MA) - Cyprus International University. Institute of Graduate Studies and Research International Relations Department

Includes bibliography (sheets 48-50)

ABSTRACT
Politically, the maintenance of peace and security is a primary concern that
predominates the interest of state political actors throughout all regions of the world.
Security threats most times are undoubtedly homegrown starting at the national level
before spreading across the region. Regional threats to security equally requires
regional cooperation and responses to pacify or rectify the crisis. The specific question
that this thesis addresses is: What factors contributed to the trans-nationalization of
Boko Haram into the countries of the Lake Chad region? Therefore, the main purpose
of this thesis is to study the factors that lead to the transnational spread of Boko Haram
- one of the world's deadliest terrorist groups, that originated as a homegrown terror
group in the socio-economic, political and religious environment of northeastern
Nigeria, with its base originally located in Sambisa forest, but has since expanded its
tentacles into the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) sub-region. Furthermore, this thesis aims to
analyze the rate of cooperation among affected countries and how it has influenced the
counter-terrorism objectives in the region. Relying on social conflict theory
(Marxism), this thesis argues that Boko Haram, which emerged as homegrown terror
group in northeastern Nigeria, was able to transform into a fierce transnational terrorist
group operating majorly in the Lake Chad region due to the similar social conditions
in existence within the region. They group succeeded in exploiting the related social
resentment and questioning the welfare disparities among the disadvantaged
communities in the region and turning them to work in their favor. By making their
course a political agenda, they ensured that local communities gave them their support
in spite of their varied religious affiliations. This aided them to recruit members from
other neighboring countries who share related social resentment against their political
leaders. This thesis employed a qualitative method. Its analysis are basically
descriptive in nature, thus, it relies deliberately on secondary sources whose data
collections are from both academic and non-academic such as unpublished thesis,
journals, seminar papers, articles, etc. The conclusion reached in this thesis is that
ethnic, social, religious, political, and economic factors necessitated the transnationalization of Boko Haram, and this finding has important implications for
tackling security threats in the Lake Chad region, addressing counter-terrorism in
general, and the overall defeat of Boko Haram.
Keywords: Boko Haram, Human Rights Watch, International Criminal Court, Lake
Chad, Nigeria, Terrorism