Spatial Distribution of Terrorists Attacks in Selected Local Governments in Borno State, Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria has witnessed an unprecedented increase in terrorist attacks in the last five years especially in the North eastern part by the Boko haram sect. This has culminated into thousands of deaths and displacement of hundreds of thousands from their towns and villages. However, despite the military efforts to curtail the insurgency, the terrorist attacks still occur abated in the region. Hence there is need to study the spatial distribution of the attacks and generate spatial information that would be useful in implementing effective counter insurgency strategies. Spatial data of terrorist attacks obtained from national emergency management agency (NEMA) and global terrorism database (GTD) in addition other ancillary data were analysed using geospatial techniques. These data were integrated into a geodatabase and spatial analysis carried out to determine the spatial characteristics of the terrorist attacks. The result shows that the pattern of the terrorist attacks is clustered and its orientation towards the north east of the study area. The hotspot of the terrorist attacks are Gwoza and Bama while central feature of attacks is Baga town; Maiduguri has the highest number of IDPS of 14,000 while Konduga has the lowest number of IDPS; Kalga has the highest number of fatalities. The attack hotspots is close to the border indicating transborder movement of the terrorists. Hence, more military force should be deployed to the Gwoza and Bama to counter the insurgent attacks.