Nigeria: Interrogating the Kinetic and Non-Kinetic Approaches of the Federal Government towards Boko Haram Insurgency in the North-East, 2009-2015

The fight against insurgency, terrorism, banditry, militancy, and other forms of criminality has been viewed from two major perspectives by scholars, security analysts and security experts in the existing literature. While some argued in favor of the kinetic approach, others supported the adoption of both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches. The main thrust of this paper is to interrogate both the kinetic and non-kinetic approaches initiated by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan led Federal Government to placate Boko Haram terrorists in the North East geo-political zone of Nigeria between 2011 and 2015. Before the adoption of the non-kinetic approach, the government made use of a military or kinetic approach in its response to the nefarious activities of Boko Haram between 2009 and 2011. It argues that the inability of the kinetic approach to successfully address the menace of the Boko Haram insurgency forced the government to adopt a non-kinetic approach or carrot option, which took several forms such as the establishment of dialogue committees and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) agency. It submits that none of these kinetic and non-kinetic measures were able to curtail the heightened disruptive activities of the insurgent group as a result of inept political leadership, failure of good governance, problem of sabotage, lack of strong political will and commitment and so on.