ISIS in West Africa and its routes. “A case study on radical Islamic movements in Nigeria and Cameroon Boko Haram”.

The Dissertation will attempt to explain the divergent in which radical Islamic movements emerge in sub-Saharan Africa using case studies of Nigeria and Cameroon two countries with high percentage of Muslim population. We will be looking to identify possible socio-politic or economic reasons that still today are pushing people towards radicalisation. The text will also study the emergence of radical roots not only by providing historical accounts of core individuals in its history but also thru looking at how information technologies and social networks have affected societies that prior to it were more or less prompt to radicalisation. By using available data we will look at “population unrest” caused by the radicalised militia, this will allow us to conclude if its causes can be traced back to ethnic conflict between tribe, thus can be seen as an attempt by a group to justify the break of a region from its current National State. This technic also allows us to map population migration due to conflict, the data will also help determine the speed in which people tend to be radicalise and to locate how evenly spread it is. I terms of leadership of the terrorist organisation, we’ll be looking at the radicalisation process by developing a chronological trace of all movements done specially by earlier and later elite of the terrorist organisation. Back to the main study of the paper; It will be also interesting to look at how the west has reacted so far since Boko Haram was founded, specially the United States and Europe. Has any founding been allocated to fight this threat? And since this is a mostly an online due to the social media revolution war as well as real war, what plans have been put in place to fight against it? “On that note” I will also be providing and intake on the matter by suggesting ideas, or concepts that might be useful to adopt at the local, national, and international level to combat the spread of radicalisation, specifically in the African context. In this case it is vital to understand Islam in Africa and how does it affect the regions is being practice. It is clear that as mentioned before some of the elements left from the colonial partitions of those countries has had and still greatly impacting those communities, for instant we can see how in the formation of Nigeria the north was integrated without consideration of the ethnicities and the native population of the land. After determining its impact we’ll then have a greater picture, see all the different actors playing and analyse if the aftermath is the result of a combination of many factors rather than purely as is been interpreted so far as the spread of Radical Islamic movement. According to data there has been some changes in the nature of the conflict in Africa, to explain such change we must first understand Islam in Africa. In this case it is fair to say that the relation between Islam and Christianity in Africa is one of the most well managed specifically in the countries mentioned when you find mixed religious backgrounds specifically in politics. In this context we find ourselves with a situation where it might not be possible to argue in favour of Islam as the only cause of radicalisation. Well if that is the case, what other option do we have left? Religious believes can sometimes been used for unexpected purposes. Most of the history of Islam in Africa can be traced way back colonisation, even prior to most of the African empires that originated such as the Mali Empire or the Asante Empire… The main reason the historiography cannot be traced back is thought to be due to the lack of written information as most West African societies used oral transmission instead of written. Today we can see the way Islam has adapted with African societies to the point were in some regions women are not required to wear a hijab, and that’s not as new as some historian might think, Is been documented how Marroquin travellers in the Middle Ages were amazed by the freedom their women enjoyed. Due to the difficulty of this research, most of the historiography of this paper will require sourcing out information from primary and secondary sources in the form videos, diaries and studies done mostly by African Islamic historians.