Assessment of the impact of ungoverned spaces on insurgency in Borno State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between ungoverned spaces and insurgency in the Borno State, Nigeria. The aim is to understand the influence of geographical variables on the activities of insurgence. The study used satellite data, population data and data on insurgency attack in the study area. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, percentage rise in slope analysis and reclassification were used for the satellite data processing.  Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) models was employed for data analysis. The findings revealed that LGAs in the central and the southern parts of the state recorded the highest number of insurgency attacks. The central and far northern part of the state has more vegetal cover, which has influenced the high incidence of insurgency attack observed. In addition, the very high incidence of insurgency attack (145) observed in Gwoza LGA, is largely attributed to the presence of the Gwoza Mountain, which is one of the main strong holds of the insurgents in Borno State. The GWR analysis reveals that the performance of the model with the population density was much better than the other variables with a corrected Akaike Information Criterion (AICc) value of 273.15, R-Squared values of 0.0323, 0.0224, 0.0203 and 0.8901 for the undulating terrain, vegetation, combination of vegetation and undulating terrain, and population density respectively. Thus, the study concludes that vegetal cover and population density have more influence on insurgency attack in the study area. Hence, the need for policy makers and security establishments to properly monitor the forested areas.