Youth Bulge, Radicalization, and Insurgency in Northeastern Nigeria

In contemporary Nigeria, the issue of youth bulge has become a major source of concern and poses innumerable challenges to law enforcement agencies and society at large. Today, the Northeastern region of Nigeria has been ravaged by the activities of insurgents that have lasted for over a decade with several attendant consequences on population dislocation and the loss of means of livelihood as well as lives and properties. The large pool of unemployed youths in the region have rendered the youths vulnerable to easy recruitment, conscription, and subsequent radicalization by the Boko Haram sect. The high level of unemployment and underemployment, poverty, politics of exclusionism and marginalization, lack of access to qualitative education and medical care, the Almajiri phenomenon, and bad governance by the ruling class predispose the youth to engage in violent activities. The chapter utilizes the Demographic Transition Theory (DTT), and Relative Deprivation Theory (RDT) serves as a theoretical frame of reference to establish the correlation between youth bulge, radicalization, and insurgency in the Northeast. Relying on secondary data, the chapter adopts content analysis as a methodology. The chapter argues and concludes that there is a correlation between the large pool of unemployed youths in the region and the insurgency that the region is grappling to contain. This chapter recommends that there is a need to implement preventive strategies against youth bulge and possible radicalization like birth control, provision of employment, and skill acquisition programs amongst others.