Religious and Political Radicalism in Nigeria: Converging Networks of Violence and the Reproduction of Human Insecurity

Abstract

Political and religious radicalism in Nigeria has developed within overlapping ecologies of violence that intensify human insecurity. This study examines how these two forms of radicalism interact to produce and reproduce human insecurity. The study employs a qualitative-analytical case study design based on documentary data, including scholarly articles, reports from governments and international organizations, policy documents, security statistics, and credible media sources. The study analyzes the data thematically through a deductive-inductive approach and uses the Staircase to Terrorism model as its analytical lens. The findings show that political radicalism operates through electoral violence, patronage networks, identity-based mobilization, informal armed actors, and the politicization of resource conflicts, whereas religious radicalism persists through insurgencies conducted by JAS/Boko Haram and ISWAP. In 2025, Nigeria recorded 171 terrorism-related incidents and 750 deaths. ISWAP and Boko Haram accounted for approximately 80% of these deaths, while civilians constituted 67% of the victims. These two ecologies of violence converge through armed networks, kidnapping, illicit economies, and weak state protection, which drive forced displacement, loss of livelihoods, disruptions to education, and the erosion of social cohesion. This study contributes to the literature by integrating political radicalism, religious radicalism, the economy of violence, and institutional weakness into a unified empirical mechanism that explains the reproduction of human insecurity.