A mathematical model of the dynamics of terrorism in Southern Borno Nigeria: a qualitative analysis

Abstract

Terrorism, which remains one of the greatest threats faced by many nations and communities worldwide, including Nigeria, is the calculated use of violence to instill fear within a population, often to achieve political, religious, or economic goals. These terrorist acts can include hijacking, hostage-taking, kidnapping, shooting, bombing, and slaughtering. This paper develops a dynamical model of terrorism for the southern part of Borno State, Nigeria. A system of three nonlinear first-order differential equations is formulated and demonstrated to have an invariant region. The positivity of the solutions indicates that the model has solutions and that these solutions are bounded. Additionally, it is shown that the model's two equilibrium points are locally asymptotically stable, thereby confirming both demographic and mathematical validity. The simulation results suggest that combining local community efforts with both violent and non-violent military strategies in countering terrorism will produce more sustainable, long-term positive outcomes, as evidenced in southern Borno State, where local communities have stood against terrorism.