The Impact of Multinational Joint Task Force Counter-Operations in the Fight against Boko Haram Insurgency

Abstract

The Boko Haram insurgency is a security threat to the countries of the Lake Chad Basin Region made up of Chad, Cameroon, Libya, Niger, Nigeria and the Central African Republic. The core and popular ideology of the sect is that “Western education is forbidden”; hence they are commonly referred to in Hausa as Yan Boko Haram. “Boko” in Hausa means western education and “Haram” in Arabic means forbidden. Boko Haram activities have therefore become a collective security threat to the Lake Chad Basin (LCBC) countries including Benin Republic necessitating the need for the countries to constitute themselves into a security community – the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to manage the situation. The collective security theory was adopted for this work because it best explains the activities of the insurgents and the Joint Task Force in the Lake Chad Basin Region. The research adopted the phenomenology research design with the qualitative approach. Data were essentially composed of direct non participant observation and other secondary sources. This research identified poor funding, logistics and mutual suspicion among member states as some of the impediments militating against the success of the joint actions against the insurgents. This study therefore suggests that more funds be dedicated to the operations of the MNJTF, while countries of the region do more to address underlining social problems through good governance, they must also askew the age long colonial legacies of mutual suspicion and collaborate more closely in dealing with the mutual threats at hand.