Ideological Infiltration and the Unschooled Mind: A Discursive Analysis of Recruitment Vulnerabilities among Never-Been-to-School Youth in Northern Nigeria

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Northern Nigeria occupies a central position in debates on educational deprivation, human security, and violent extremism. The region carries a disproportionate share of Nigeria’s out-of-school population. UNICEF estimates that 10.2 million primary-school-age children and 8.1 million junior-secondary-school-age children remain out of school nationally, with participation lowest in the northern regions.¹ In the North-East alone, approximately two million children in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states are out of school, a condition intensified by insurgency, displacement, attacks on schools, teacher shortages, and poverty.² Recent assessments further indicate that Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa states alone account for roughly 16 per cent of the national primary-level out-of-school population, underscoring the spatial concentration of educational exclusion in the North-West.³

The category “never-been-to-school” is analytically distinct from “out-of-school” or “dropout.” An out-of-school child may have attended school for a period before withdrawal, while a dropout possesses residual exposure to formal literacy, classroom routines, peer networks, and civic socialization. By contrast, a never-been-to-school child or young person has not been formally enrolled at any point. This distinction matters because recruitment vulnerability is not produced by school absence alone; it emerges from the absence of foundational cognitive, linguistic, and institutional resources that schooling can provide.⁴ The security implications are significant. Non-state armed groups in the Lake Chad Basin have historically used preaching, abduction, coercion, marriage alliances, financial inducement, and propaganda to recruit children and young people.⁵ Studies of former child associates of Boko Haram show that recruitment is shaped not only by ideology but also by survival needs, adventure, status, protection, and the search for belonging.⁶ Therefore, educational exclusion should be understood as part of a wider human-security deficit in which poverty, weak state presence, community grievance, and armed-group propaganda reinforce one another.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Contemporary counter-terrorism and deradicalisation programmes often focus on individuals who have already joined armed groups, been arrested, surrendered, or entered reintegration centres. This focus is necessary, but it is structurally reactive. It pays limited attention to the pre-radicalisation stage, especially among unalphabetized and never-enrolled populations who may encounter extremist narratives before they possess the literacy and analytical tools needed to interrogate them.⁷ Existing research has established associations between poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, weak family structures, and vulnerability to recruitment in Northern Nigeria.⁸ However, fewer studies examine the linguistic and cognitive mechanisms through which extremist messages convert educational exclusion into ideological receptivity. The problem, therefore, is not simply that never-been-to-school youth lack information. It is that recruitment narratives may fill the resulting interpretive vacuum with simplified explanations of injustice, identity, salvation, and belonging. This study addresses that gap by treating absolute educational exclusion as a distinct cognitive and discursive condition rather than as a residual category of illiteracy.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The aim of this study is to examine the mechanisms of ideological infiltration targeting never-been-to-school youth in Northern Nigeria. The specific objectives are to:

i. Examine the mechanisms through which extremist recruiters construct ideological legitimacy for never-been-to-school youth.

ii. Analyse the discursive patterns and rhetorical strategies used to exploit cognitive gaps associated with absolute educational exclusion.

iii. Assess the socio-spatial conditions under which educational exclusion, insecurity, and recruitment discourse converge, and propose preventive education-security interventions.

1.4 Research Questions

The following research questions guided the study:

i. How do recruitment narratives construct ideological legitimacy for never-been-to-school youth?

ii. In what ways does the absence of formal schooling and foundational critical literacy shape cognitive susceptibility to extremist indoctrination?

iii. How do structural conditions of poverty, insecurity, and weak governance interact with discursive strategies to enlarge the interpretive space available to recruiters?

1.5 Significance and Scope of the Study

Theoretically, the study contributes to the intersection of Critical Discourse Analysis, sociology of education, and terrorism studies. It reframes literacy not merely as an educational outcome but as a cognitive and civic resource that can mediate exposure to manipulative political and religious discourse. Practically, the study informs early-warning security architecture, regional educational reform, and preventative policy design. Its novelty lies in isolating the never-been-to-school category as a distinct analytical object and in demonstrating that recruitment discourse functions as a substitute pedagogical process. The scope is limited to never-been-to-school youth in Northern Nigeria, with particular attention to Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and related armed groups in the North-East and North-West. The study does not claim that all uneducated youth are vulnerable to extremism; rather, it examines how structural exclusion can create conditions that recruiters strategically exploit.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Conceptual Framework

“Never-been-to-school” refers to individuals of compulsory-school age or beyond who have never been formally enrolled in a recognized primary or secondary institution. The term differs from “out-of-school children,” a broader administrative category that includes both children who have never enrolled and those who dropped out. It also differs from “Almajiri,” a culturally specific term for children sent for Qur’anic education, many of whom combine religious instruction with begging or informal labour. While some Almajiri children have never attended formal school, the categories are not interchangeable.⁹ “Ideological infiltration” describes the process by which extremist actors introduce, normalize, and institutionalize a political-religious worldview within a community or individual’s interpretive environment. It operates through sermons, peer networks, family ties, digital media, audio-visual propaganda, and face-to-face persuasion. “Cognitive vulnerability” does not imply intellectual deficiency. It refers to situational limitations in critical appraisal produced by restricted literacy, limited access to diverse information, weak civic education, trauma, and dependence on authoritative oral sources.¹⁰

2.2 Theoretical Framework

The study integrates Fairclough¹¹ three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis with Social Identity Theory. Fairclough’s model examines discourse at three levels: textual analysis, which investigates wording, metaphor, pronouns, modality, and narrative structure; discursive practice, which examines how messages are produced, distributed, and consumed; and social practice, which connects discourse to wider relations of power, inequality, and ideology. This model is appropriate because extremist recruitment is simultaneously a linguistic act, a communication process, and a political practice.¹² Social Identity Theory explains why individuals may accept group narratives that offer belonging, status, and moral certainty.¹³ For youth excluded from schools, employment, and formal civic institutions, armed groups may present themselves as an alternative community. Recruitment discourse often constructs an in-group of “true believers” or “oppressed Muslims” and an out-group of corrupt elites, foreign powers, or religious deviants.¹⁴ This binary structure simplifies complex social problems into morally legible categories.

The study also draws on critical pedagogy and critical literacy. Critical literacy enables learners to question authorship, purpose, evidence, and power relations in texts and speech. Where such capacities are underdeveloped, persuasive narratives may be received as self-evident truth, particularly when delivered by trusted religious or community authorities. In this sense, foundational education can function as a cognitive firewall that expands the range of interpretive tools available to young people.¹⁵

2.3 Empirical Review

Empirical studies consistently identify educational deprivation as one factor within a broader recruitment ecology. Ike et al.¹⁶ found that poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and weak family structures exacerbated young men’s vulnerability to extremism in Northern Nigeria. Comolli¹⁷ similarly reported that participants identified high illiteracy as a major factor influencing adoption of extreme religious views, alongside poverty and the appeal of itinerant preachers who portrayed government as weak and corrupt. Osisanwo¹⁸ analysed Boko Haram statements and found that the group uses manipulative discursive strategies to recruit members and sustain ideological commitment. These include appeals to divine authority, depictions of the state as illegitimate, dehumanization of opponents, and framing of violence as defensive or redemptive. David,¹⁹ drawing on semi-structured interviews in the North-East, identified material attraction, ideological appeal, coercion, and identity politics as key push and pull factors of youth radicalization. Achilli²⁰ further demonstrated that fun, peer solidarity, status, and survival considerations featured prominently in the experiences of former child associates of Boko Haram.

Education-focused research complicates any simple claim that schooling automatically prevents radicalization. Afzal²¹ found that, among northern Nigerians, support for Boko Haram was sometimes higher among those with some years of Western education than among those with less education, suggesting that negative experiences with the school system can itself generate grievance. Hoechner et al.²² and related work on Qur’anic schools caution against treating traditional Islamic education as an automatic recruitment pipeline; rather, structural violence, forced recruitment, and the collapse of community support structures have placed many students at risk. These findings do not negate the protective value of quality education; instead, they show that poorly resourced, discriminatory, or violently disrupted schooling may fail to build trust and critical citizenship.

Table 1 summarizes the scale and spatial concentration of educational exclusion in Nigeria and situates it within the security environment of the North.

Table 1: Educational exclusion and its security-relevant concentration in Nigeria

Note. OOSC = out-of-school children. Figures are drawn from UNICEF reporting (2024–2025) and illustrate structural concentration rather than direct causation.

2.4 Gap in Literature

Although scholars have examined Boko Haram propaganda, recruitment drivers, and education-policy failures, few studies combine these concerns through a discursive analysis of never-been-to-school youth specifically. Much existing work treats illiteracy as a background variable rather than analyzing how recruitment language is designed for oral, non-textual, and cognitively constrained audiences.²⁸ This study addresses that gap by examining how extremist discourse substitutes a simplified ideological education for the critical literacy and civic socialization that formal schooling is expected to provide. The novelty of the contribution lies in:

i. isolating absolute educational exclusion as a distinct analytical category

ii. applying Fairclough’s three-dimensional model to recruitment discourse aimed at non-literate audiences, and

iii. linking discursive strategies to measurable cognitive and socio-spatial vulnerabilities.

3. Methodology

3.1 Research Design

The study adopts a qualitative, interpretive, and discursive research design. Qualitative CDA is appropriate because the research questions concern meaning-making: how recruiters construct legitimacy, identity, grievance, and moral obligation. The design also incorporates secondary ethnographic and policy data to situate discourse within the material conditions of Northern Nigeria. A quantitative survey would measure attitudes but would not adequately reveal the rhetorical construction of reality in recruitment messages; hence, CDA was selected.

3.2 Data Sources and Collection

The study uses two complementary data sets. The first is a discursive corpus comprising publicly reported extracts of extremist recruitment rhetoric, audio-visual propaganda transcripts, community testimonies published in credible research and journalistic sources, and security or policy briefs describing recruitment methods. Sensitive operational details, identities, locations, and personally identifying information are excluded or anonymized. The second consists of secondary sources, including UNICEF education reports (2024–2025), UNESCO and UBEC-related data, government policy documents, and peer-reviewed studies of recruitment and radicalization published between 2014 and 2025. The corpus was selected purposively. Texts were included where they explicitly addressed recruitment, ideological justification, religious authority, state illegitimacy, education, youth, or belonging. Texts were excluded where they contained only operational claims without discursive content. This selection criterion ensures that the analysis remains focused on language and meaning rather than on sensationalized security reporting.

Table 2 demonstrates that each data source performs a distinct analytical function.

Table 2: Data sources and justification for inclusion

Note. Combining discursive, experiential, and structural sources reduces the risk of interpreting extremist language apart from its social context.

3.3 Method of Data Analysis

Data were analyzed using Fairclough’s³² three-dimensional CDA model. At the textual level, the analysis examined lexical choices, pronouns, metaphors, repetition, religious references, modality, and narrative structure. At the discursive-practice level, it examined how messages were produced and circulated through sermons, peer networks, audio-visual media, and community intermediaries. At the social-practice level, it connected discourse to poverty, educational exclusion, state distrust, gender inequality, and armed-group governance.

Thematic coding proceeded in three stages. First, descriptive coding identified recurrent topics such as grievance, salvation, protection, belonging, and reward. Second, interpretive coding examined how these topics were linguistically framed. Third, explanatory coding linked discursive strategies to the cognitive and social vulnerabilities of never-been-to-school youth. This staged approach ensures that interpretations remain anchored in textual evidence.

3.4 Ethical Considerations

The study observes ethical safeguards appropriate to conflict-sensitive research. No direct interviews were conducted with active recruits, abducted persons, or children. Publicly available materials were used, and sensitive security information was excluded where disclosure could endanger communities, researchers, or responders. Names, locations, and identifying details were anonymized. The study also avoids reproducing extremist propaganda in ways that could amplify its reach; extracts are analyzed only to the extent necessary for scholarly interpretation.

3.5 Trustworthiness and Limitations of Design

Credibility was enhanced through triangulation across propaganda texts, secondary testimonies, and policy data. Transferability is supported by thick description of the socio-spatial context of Northern Nigeria. Dependability rests on transparent coding stages and explicit theoretical anchoring. Confirmability is pursued by grounding interpretations in publicly verifiable sources. The principal design limitation is the reliance on secondary rather than primary fieldwork with never-been-to-school youth; this choice prioritizes participant protection while constraining direct insight into individual interpretation of messages.

4. Results / Findings

4.1 Discursive Patterns in Extremist Recruitment Narratives

Four recurrent rhetorical patterns emerged from the corpus: grievance framing, moral-authority appeals, binary identity construction, and oral-centric persuasion. First, grievance framing presents poverty, corruption, insecurity, and state abandonment as evidence of a deliberate war against marginalized communities. Recruiters convert material hardship into political meaning by portraying the state as an enemy rather than as a failed or reformable institution. This strategy is effective where youth have experienced school closures, insecurity, unemployment, and visible inequality.³³

Second, moral-authority appeals invoke God, religious purity, martyrdom, and sacred duty. Religious vocabulary supplies certainty where formal education may have provided little exposure to comparative religious interpretation, historical context, or civic reasoning. Osisanwo³⁴ similarly finds that Boko Haram statements use manipulation, authority claims, and ideological framing to recruit and retain members.

Third, binary identity construction divides the social world into believers and enemies, pure communities and corrupt elites, protectors and oppressors. This simplification reduces cognitive demand: complex political problems are translated into a clear moral script. It also offers status to youth who may otherwise occupy marginal social positions.³⁵

Fourth, recruitment communication is often oral, performative, and audio-visual rather than text-heavy. Sermons, songs, videos, face-to-face preaching, and peer testimony reduce dependence on reading ability. This oral-centric style is strategically suited to audiences with limited formal literacy, allowing ideological content to circulate through listening, repetition, emotional resonance, and communal validation.

Table 3 links each rhetorical strategy to its communicative and psychological functions.

Table 3: Recruitment discursive strategies and their cognitive functions

Note. Strategies often co-occur; their combined effect is greater than any single device.

4.2 Cognitive Vulnerabilities Stemming from Educational Deprivation

The findings indicate that absolute educational exclusion shapes susceptibility through four interrelated mechanisms: limited critical literacy, restricted information pluralism, weak institutional socialization, and reduced exposure to alternative life pathways. Limited critical literacy restricts the capacity to interrogate the source, evidence, and purpose of a persuasive message. A young person who has not developed habits of comparing claims, identifying emotional manipulation, or distinguishing religious doctrine from political instruction may accept an authoritative speaker’s interpretation more readily. This is not a deficit of intelligence; it is a deficit of opportunity to practise analytical reasoning. Restricted information pluralism means that youth may depend heavily on a small number of trusted voices, such as a preacher, peer group, or local patron. Where schools, libraries, radio diversity, and digital literacy are absent, extremist narratives face less immediate competition. The result is an informational monopoly in which repetition can acquire the appearance of consensus.

Weak institutional socialization refers to the loss of routines associated with schooling: punctuality, cooperative learning, adult mentorship, civic discussion, and exposure to rules that apply beyond the family. Armed groups can replace these routines with military drills, religious instruction, peer bonding, and hierarchical discipline. Research on former child associates shows that armed groups can provide excitement, belonging, and social recognition, which formal institutions may fail to offer.³⁶ Finally, reduced exposure to alternative pathways narrows the imagined future. Where schooling is absent and employment is scarce, recruitment narratives can present armed-group membership as one of the few available routes to income, marriage, respect, or protection. This does not mean that poverty determines recruitment; rather, it means that deprivation increases the persuasive value of promises made by armed actors.³⁷

4.3 The Socio-Spatial Dynamics of Infiltration

The study finds that ideological infiltration is most likely where zero-schooling zones overlap with poverty, displacement, weak governance, and armed-group presence. The North-East and North-West display this overlap most clearly. UNICEF³⁸ reports that northern children are least likely to participate in education, while approximately two million children are out of school in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states. These are also areas affected by insurgency, displacement, school attacks, and weakened public services. Infiltration therefore follows a socio-spatial logic. Armed groups do not merely seek physically accessible territory; they seek interpretive territory communities where their account of injustice, religion, and belonging can circulate with limited challenge. Schools, when functional, disrupt this territory by introducing alternative authorities, peer networks, literacy, civic knowledge, and state presence.

Table 4 interprets infiltration as a convergence effect rather than a single-cause outcome.

Table 4: Convergence of educational exclusion, insecurity and infiltration pathways

Note. Prevention must address all four conditions simultaneously; single-sector responses are insufficient.

5. Discussion

5.1 Interpretation of Findings

The findings suggest that ideological infiltration operates as a linguistic and cognitive substitution for formal education. Extremist recruiters do not simply transmit doctrine; they teach a simplified worldview. Through repetition, storytelling, moral binaries, and authoritative performance, they provide explanations for suffering, rules for behaviour, and a vision of belonging. In this sense, recruitment discourse performs some of the functions ordinarily associated with schooling: it organizes knowledge, shapes identity, establishes authority, and offers a moral community. However, the “unschooled mind” should not be treated as naturally radicalisable. The evidence indicates that vulnerability arises from the interaction between educational exclusion and adverse social conditions. Ike et al.,³⁹ Comolli,⁴⁰ and David⁴¹ identify illiteracy alongside poverty, unemployment, and weak family structures as recruitment risk factors. Achilli⁴² adds that fun, peer solidarity, protection, and status can be decisive in children’s association with armed groups. Thus, cognitive vulnerability is socially produced, not biologically determined.

The findings also qualify claims that education is an automatic safeguard. Adesote et al.⁴³ and Afzal⁴⁴ found that some northern Nigerians with limited Western education expressed greater support for Boko Haram than those with less education, possibly because negative schooling experiences intensified grievance. The implication is that the protective value of education depends on quality, inclusion, relevance, and trust. Schools that are violent, discriminatory, under-resourced, or disconnected from community realities may fail to build the civic resilience expected of them.

5.2 Theoretical Implications

The study advances discourse-analytical approaches within terrorism and security studies by showing that recruitment is a pedagogical process. Extremist groups educate their audiences before they mobilize them. They teach who is responsible for hardship, what counts as justice, whom to trust, and what actions are morally required. Fairclough’s model is useful because it reveals this process across language, communication practice, and social structure. The study also reinforces the argument that foundational literacy can function as a cognitive firewall against extremism. Critical literacy does not guarantee immunity from manipulation, but it expands the range of interpretive tools available for evaluating claims. When combined with civic education, media literacy, and inclusive religious education, it can help young people distinguish spiritual guidance from political mobilization. Finally, the integration of Social Identity Theory explains why counter-narratives must offer more than factual correction. Youth may accept extremist narratives because these narratives supply identity, esteem, and belonging. Prevention programmes must therefore create competing sources of positive identity, such as school-based clubs, vocational pathways, sports, mentorship, and community service.

5.3 Policy and Practical Implications

The findings support treating Universal Basic Education enforcement as a kinetic-free national security priority. This does not mean militarizing schools or framing children as security threats. It means recognizing that sustained access to safe, quality, inclusive basic education is a preventive investment in human security. Nigeria’s policy ambition to expand access for millions of out-of-school children is therefore directly relevant to prevention.⁴⁵

Policy responses should prioritize non-formal and accelerated education for adolescents who have never enrolled. Flexible learning centres, mother-tongue instruction, Qur’anic-integrated basic education where appropriate, radio and audio learning, and competency-based progression can reduce the barrier between absolute exclusion and foundational literacy. Such programmes must be designed with communities rather than imposed upon them. Community-level resilience programmes should train teachers, religious leaders, parents, and youth facilitators in critical literacy, conflict-sensitive communication, and recognition of recruitment tactics. Because recruiters often use trusted local voices, prevention is most credible when it emerges from trusted local institutions. UNICEF⁴⁶ reports that enrolment drives involving traditional and religious leaders helped return more than 239,623 previously out-of-school children to formal and non-formal schooling in 2024, illustrating the value of community partnership.

Table 5 translates the study’s discursive findings into practical interventions.

Table 5: Policy recommendations derived from the findings

Note. The central principle is complementarity: enrolment reduces exposure to the recruitment vacuum; accelerated learning repairs skill gaps; critical literacy strengthens judgement; community engagement confers legitimacy.

6. Conclusion and Recommendations

6.1 Summary of Key Findings

The study finds that extremist recruitment narratives exploit the educational vacuum of never-been-to-school youth through grievance framing, moral-authority appeals, binary identity construction, oral-centric communication, and promises of material and social reward. These strategies transform deprivation into ideological meaning and offer belonging where formal institutions have failed to provide opportunity, protection, or recognition. Educational exclusion does not cause violent extremism by itself, but it can enlarge the interpretive space in which recruitment discourse becomes persuasive. The novelty of the analysis lies in demonstrating that recruitment functions as a substitute pedagogical process directed at audiences who have never been exposed to formal critical literacy.

6.2 Suggestions

Based on the findings, the study suggests that federal and state governments, development partners, and communities:

1. Prioritize the enrolment of never-been-to-school children through community-based enrolment drives, abolition of hidden costs, school feeding, and targeted support for girls, children with disabilities, and displaced learners.

2. Establish accelerated foundational learning centres for adolescents and youth who have never attended school, using flexible schedules, mother-tongue instruction, and recognition of prior Qur’anic or informal learning.

3. Integrate critical literacy, media literacy, civic education, and conflict-resolution skills into basic and non-formal education curricula.

4. Train teachers, religious leaders, traditional rulers, parents, and youth mentors to recognize and respond peacefully to recruitment pressure.

5. Expand safe-schools measures, psychosocial support, and education-in-emergency services in insurgency-affected states.

6. Link education investment to livelihood support for poor households so that schooling does not compete with immediate survival needs.

7. Treat foundational education as a preventive security priority while avoiding stigmatizing language that portrays uneducated youth as potential terrorists.

6.3 Limitations and Directions for Future Research

The study relies on secondary discursive and ethnographic materials rather than direct fieldwork with never-been-to-school youth. This choice protects vulnerable participants but limits direct insight into how individuals personally interpret recruitment messages. In addition, the focus on Northern Nigeria may limit generalizability to other conflict settings. Future research should conduct longitudinal studies tracking educational access, critical-literacy development, and recruitment exposure over time. Comparative studies across the North-East, North-West, and North-Central zones would also clarify whether different insurgent groups use distinct discursive strategies. Finally, participatory research with former associates, families, teachers, and religious leaders could strengthen the design of culturally legitimate prevention programmes.

Endnotes

1. UNICEF. (2024a). Annual report 2024: Nigeria. United Nations Children’s Fund. https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/reports/annual-report-2024; UNICEF. (2024b). The state of Nigeria’s children: Summary of the 2024 updated Situation Analysis of Children and Women. United Nations Children’s Fund. https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/reports/updated-situation-analysis-nigeria-2024

2. UNICEF. (2024c). 2 million out-of-school children expected to access quality learning in Northeast Nigeria [Press release]. https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/press-releases/2-million-out-school-children-expected-access-quality-learning-northeast-nigeria; ReliefWeb. (2025). 2 million out-of-school children expected to access quality learning in Northeast Nigeria. https://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/2-million-out-school-children-expected-access-quality-learning-northeast-nigeria

3. UNICEF. (2025). Nigerian Child 2025 Report / Field Office briefings on out-of-school children in Kano, Katsina and Jigawa. United Nations Children’s Fund (as reported in Premium Times and related media, November 2025).

4. Hoechner, H., Bukar, Y., Galadima, A., & Salisu, S. (2026). Exploring the nexus between Islamic education and violent conflict: Qur’anic schools and the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria. Comparative Education Review, 70(2), 279–298. https://doi.org/10.1086/740452; Okonkwo, O. S. (2025). Exploring youth radicalisation within the Almajiri system in Northern Nigeria. International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) Policy Brief. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.19165/LXOJ9564 https://icct.nl/publication/exploring-youth-radicalisation-within-almajiri-system-northern-nigeria

5. Comolli, V. (2015). Boko Haram: Nigeria's Islamist insurgency. Hurst & Company.; International Crisis Group. (2020, October 29). The Islamic State franchises in Africa: Lessons from Lake Chad (Africa Report No. 292). crisisgroup.org; David, D. I. (2025). Violent extremism and the push and pull factors of youth radicalization in Northeast Nigeria. Journal of Developing Societies, 41(4), 465–492. https://doi.org/10.1177/0169796X251341780

6. Achilli, L. (2025). Boko Haram’s “playground”: Exploring the role of fun among children associated with armed groups in Nigeria. Small Wars & Insurgencies. 44(1), 95-112 https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2024.2409533; Chiluwa, I. (2015). Radicalist discourse: a study of the stances of Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Somalia’s Al Shabaab on Twitter. Journal of Multicultural Discourses. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2015.1041964.; Chiluwa I (2017) The discourse of terror threats: assessing online written threats by Nigerian terrorist groups. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 40(4): 318–338.

7. David, D. I. (2025). Violent extremism and the push and pull factors of youth radicalization in Northeast Nigeria. Journal of Developing Societies, 41(4), 465–492. https://doi.org/10.1177/0169796X251341780; Osisanwo, A. (2024). Manipulative and recruitment strategies in Boko Haram terrorist statements. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 60(5), 3303–3318. https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096241228795

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9. Okonkwo, O. S. (2025). Exploring youth radicalisation within the Almajiri system in Northern Nigeria. International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) Policy Brief. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.19165/LXOJ9564 https://icct.nl/publication/exploring-youth-radicalisation-within-almajiri-system-northern-nigeria; Hoechner, H., Bukar, Y., Galadima, A., & Salisu, S. (2026). Exploring the nexus between Islamic education and violent conflict: Qur’anic schools and the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria. Comparative Education Review, 70(2), 279–298. https://doi.org/10.1086/740452; Baker, P., & Vessey, R. (2018). A corpus-driven comparison of English and French Islamist extremist texts. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 23(3): 255–278.

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15. Afzal, M. (2020). Education and Boko Haram in Nigeria. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/wp content/uploads/2020/04/FP_20200507_nigeria_boko_haram_afzal.pdf

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17. Comolli, V. (2015). Boko Haram: Nigeria's Islamist insurgency. Hurst & Company.

18. Osisanwo, A. (2024). Manipulative and recruitment strategies in Boko Haram terrorist statements. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 60(5), 3303–3318. https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096241228795

19. David, D. I. (2025). Violent extremism and the push and pull factors of youth radicalization in Northeast Nigeria. Journal of Developing Societies, 41(4), 465–492. https://doi.org/10.1177/0169796X251341780

20. Achilli, L. (2025). Boko Haram’s “playground”: Exploring the role of fun among children associated with armed groups in Nigeria. Small Wars & Insurgencies. 44(1), 95-112 https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2024.2409533

21. Afzal, M. (2020). Education and Boko Haram in Nigeria. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/wp content/uploads/2020/04/FP_20200507_nigeria_boko_haram_afzal.pdf

22. Hoechner, H., Bukar, Y., Galadima, A., & Salisu, S. (2026). Exploring the nexus between Islamic education and violent conflict: Qur’anic schools and the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria. Comparative Education Review, 70(2), 279–298. https://doi.org/10.1086/740452

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