Terrorism and counter-terrorism in Nigeria : an overview of Boko Haram

The world in which we live in the 21st century is confronted with myriads of security challenges all of which have to be tackled so that we may find the world a safe place to live in and carry on with our respective individual pursuits without let or hindrance. In the century prior to the present, wars on a horrendous scale posed the greatest security challenge to the survival of the human race. It was in the 20th century that the terminology of World War emerged in the lexicon of war. Both World War I and World War II claimed millions of lives, devastated infrastructure and destroyed economies on such an unprecedented scale as compelled the search for a war-free world to become a global concern. It was this search that led to the creation of the League of Nations and its successor entity, the United Nations Organisation (UNO) that soon became the platform for preventive diplomacy aimed at averting wars, as well as multi-national peacekeeping operations meant to end ongoing wars in any part of the world.