NJIKO: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal of Humanities, Law, Education and Social Sciences

This paper examines the challenge of terrorism in northern Nigeria from a philosophical viewpoint. It brings to the fore the dehumanizing and adverse effects of terrorism on the economy, security, development and internal peace in the North .It argues that much more than other regions Northern Nigeria is overwhelmed by this menace that has displaced citizens, rendering them international refugees and internally displaced persons even in their own country. The goal of the paper is to attain the rectification and restoration of a peaceful social order within that axis. Thriving on the conviction that terrorism with its potentiality of monumental and even irreversible harm to humanity is driven by strong ideologies, religious, political/social, the paper conceptually interrogates these ideologies as well as the terrorism question in general. In highlighting the evil, harmful, disruptive nature and outcomes of terrorism in northern Nigeria and its inherent threats to human dignity and values, it projects possible remedial measures. The work is mainly a conceptual and descriptive analysis of some relevant causal factors or ideologies occasioning terrorism, such as ideological alienation, commodification of values, egoism and narcissism in political governance and dehumanization among others. This is done with a view to showing the life –threatening nature of terrorism and suggest the need for an alternate set of human and humane values for a more stable, viable and progressive developmental socio-political order in Nigeria.

Open Full Text (PDF)