ABSTRACT

Nigeria’s Boko Haram has, according to a United Nations department, helped to shape the definition of what constitutes violent extremism today. The dynamics of identity and ideology fuel Northern Nigeria’s Islamic extremism, and gender is instrumental in recruitment, radicalization and participation in these movements and their activities. Certainly, there are a multiplicity of both push and pull factors which drive extremism in the structural context of Northern Nigeria’s society, including socio-economic poverty, poor governance, illiteracy, political ideologies, as well as a history of prolonged and unresolved conflicts. In examining the drivers of violent extremism in this context, it is necessary, and indeed critical, to consider not only the structural socio-economic conditions, but also the dynamics of religious identity and ideology played in the field of politics, and within that interplay, to consider the religious rhetoric which defines and shapes gender relations at national and local levels. Similarly, gender is a necessary factor in policy making and implementation approaches which attempt to prevent and to counter terrorism in this region. There is need for greater recognition of the fact that both men and women are perpetrators and victims of extremist violence, and that men and women experience this violence differently. Equally, there is need for both perspectives to be heard, including their experience and their suggested pathways, for countering the spread of such violence.