Is Boko Haram a “child” of economic circumstances?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the question: “Is Boko Haram (BH) a ‘child’ of economic circumstances”? In other words, do economic problems of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and population growth lie at the root of BH insurgency in Nigeria? Finding (an) objective answer(s) to this question informs the purpose for this paper. Design/methodology/approach The author uses both ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and descriptive statistics to provide answer(s) to the question(s) asked. Findings The OLS regressions result show that terrorism incidence and intensity (TII) and unemployment levels are positively related and statistically significant over the range of the sample. Gross domestic product and population growth of the country on the other hand have been found to be statistically insignificant with TII. The results from the descriptive statistics show a high and above average Northern Nigeria’s economic indexes of poverty, unemployment, population growth and illiteracy rates. Thus, the author deduces that economic factors of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and unchecked population growth could not be ruled out as possible causes of BH terrorism. Research limitations/implications The findings of this research may be peculiar, limited and applicable only to the region of research – Northern Nigeria. The author is, therefore, constrained to generalise the findings across countries or other terrorist organisations. Also, while terrorists often quote religious texts to justify their actions, researchers often find it difficult to establish the veracity of such claims because: religious texts are, more often than not, subjects of different, contextual, sectarian and scholarly interpretations and If we take the terrorists’ claim for religious inspiration at their face value, the contradiction of why terrorists represent a minority fringe in particular religions or, why the vast majority of those who share same religion with terrorists do not partake in terrorism, crops up. For these reasons, this research is constrained from exploring terrorists’ religious motivations. Practical implications An implication of the findings of this research is that it avails the Nigerian Government with fact that, to fight BH successfully, it needs to also address the issues of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and uncontrolled population growth. Thus, in essence, the anti-BH campaign should not only be limited to the “sticks” but the “carrots” of poverty alleviation, unemployment reduction, raising literacy rates and awareness about controlling birthrate. Social implications Social welfare programs are likely to be devised to tackle the issues raised. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, no research explored the possibility of whether or not economic factors of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy could have been the causes or contributory factors for the emergence of BH terrorist organisation in Nigeria. Research on BH mostly focusses on social and political dimensions leaving the economic aspect either superficially explained or completely unexplored. The originality of this paper derives from this.