Political Violence. A Comparative and Social Movement Study of Boko Haram and MEND

2013-11-22

Three main topics were researched in the thesis. These include the emergence of the

two militant movements, the role of ideology, and the subsequent evolution and escalation of

the different forms of political violence within the groups, given the groups‟ peculiar

experiences within the Nigerian society. The idea here was not to discuss all the various social

and political structures within the Nigerian society, or all the various political violent

activities that have been carried out by these movements, or all the utterances that are

accredited to members of the group. Rather, the study attempted to situate the emergence of

these militant groups in changes in the socio-political and geo-political environments within

the regions in which the groups appeared, analyse the different ideologies within the two

groups and finally discussed the succession and progression of political violent events,

especially during the early stages and developments of political violence within the groups

(2005-2009 in MEND; 2002 and 2009-2011 in Boko Haram). The study also compared the

two groups; outlining how these elements and developments are similar, and differed from

each, especially when it came to the groups‟ leader‟s framing of their ideologies, as well as

the evolution and progression of different forms of political violence.