The Nigerian Conflict Narrative and its Impact for Sub-Regional Security Order, 1999-2019

The term 'insecurity' is increasingly becoming a normative theme in the lexicon of contemporary domestic and foreign policy thrusts of most nation states. This assertion has proven correct in the context of Africa where insecurity poses a serious threat to the development agenda of the continent. Both endogenous and exogenous factors are to blame for this state of affairs. The paper examines the nexus between insecurity and the vectors constituting their causal factors. In the main, most of the continent's conflicts, including their structural variants and the general instabilities that follow are caused by identity-based questions including religion and ethnicity. The paper further expounds on this by focusing on Nigeria. The paper argues that internal failures within states lead to national insecurity which later transcends national boundaries to affect other countries, sub-regions and eventually the entire African continent. To weave the argument articulated, the paper leaned heavily on the qualitative research methodology. This suggests the content analysis of existing literatures in the arts and social sciences and the multi, inter and trans-disciplinary research frameworks were also deployed for deeper analysis. One of the recommendations is that to confront the challenges threatening the socio-economic and political viability of Nigeria in its march towards becoming a key player in the integration drive of Africa, it is imperative that the insecurities highlighted above must be curbed and the gains of violent non-state actors permanently eliminated.