AUN to participate in Canada-funded research on insurgency

A consortium of nine universities in Canada and the Lake Chad basin countries of Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroun have secured a preliminary grant of $198,000 to build a massive database on the Boko Haram insurrection in the Lake Chad basin.
The grant is to fund an international scholars’ partnership that can design a significant research initiative and gain the approval of the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) that is providing the preliminary grant.
The grant is expected to fund logistic support for a series of planned meetings in Yola, elsewhere in the Lake Chad basin countries, and in Canada.
The chair of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the American University of Nigeria (AUN), Prof Bill Hansen, said the spadework is intended to produce data on all aspects of the Chad basin region, including education, health, environment, agriculture, politics, economics, religion, and multiple other topics and sub-topics.
“The intent is that it will create the most complete and comprehensive collection on Boko Haram and the entire Lake Chad basin.” Prof.
Hansen says the pathbreaking joint project will ultimately be a significant step forward for AUN and research on Boko Haram and insurrection in Nigeria.
Prof Hansen has researched extensively and published critically-acclaimed studies on Boko Haram and MuslimChristian relations in Northern Nigeria.
His strong argument is that the insurgency is directly fueled by social inequalities and mismanagement of the sociopolitical space by successive governments.
His most recent research publication Poverty and ‘Economic Deprivation Theory’: Street Children, Qur’anic Schools/Almajirai and the Disposed as a Source of Recruits for Boko Haram and other Religious, Political and Criminal Groups in Northern Nigeria was published in Perspectives on Terrorism, 10 (5).
Another significant landmark research, Parasites, Predators, and Terrorists: the Nigerian State and Boko Haram, has been accepted for publication by the Africa World Press (Trenton, NJ).
In 2015 he published Boko Haram: Religious Radicalism and Insurrection in Northern Nigeria, (Journal of Asian and African Studies), to critical acclaim.

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