Nigeria as a Potential Terrorist Haven Explaining the Convergence of Possibilities and Impossibilities

Abstract

Is Nigeria a possible terrorist haven? This article aims to answer this question from two perspectives: international and domestic terrorism. From the perspective of international terrorism and in the standpoint of Western liberalism, for a foreseeable future Nigeria cannot be a haven for terrorism. This is the impossibility scenario. However, evidence in this paper shows that Nigeria is already a haven for domestic terrorism. For the latter, several
reasons have been discerned as the causes of domestic terrorism in Nigeria. These include the socio-economic factors, ethnoreligious pluralism and the nature of the state/political system. The article contends that while the argument of Nigeria being a potential haven for international terrorism
has been dismissed, it does not suggest that in the distant future things may not change