Akali Omeni
Biographic Data
| ID | 506377 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Akali Omeni |
| GIVEN NAMES | Akali |
| FAMILY NAME | Omeni |
| SIGNATURE | OMENI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of St Andrews |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2282-6626 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
It Certainly Will Help if That Stopped’
As Nigeria's Federal Military Government confronted Biafran separatists during the Civil War (1967–1970), foreign involvement critically shaped its conduct and outcome. Drawing on archival and declassified sources, this article analyses how Britain's hesitant yet pivotal arms support, America's studied neutrality, and the Soviet Union's sustained military assistance influenced Federal strategy. It challenges conventional emphasis on Soviet airpow…
Today they are going to kill us”
This article examines the ethnicization of the Nigerian Army between 1957 and 1966, tracing how recruitment reforms transformed it from a meritocratic institution into one fractured by competing loyalties. We distinguish three intersecting cleavages—ethnic, regional, and sociological (linked to educational and training pipelines)—to show how the introduction of a regionally based “Quota System” reshaped officer cohorts, lowered professional thres…
Politics and the Nigerian Army (1965–1966)
Four years after Nigeria’s Independence (1960), its army remained headed by a British General Officer Commanding ( GOC ). Seeking to change this in April 1965, the government’s ‘Nigerianisation’ agenda saw Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo from Eastern Nigeria, appointed Army GOC by Prime Minister Balewa. Months later, in January 1966, military coupists assassinated Balewa, and Ironsi emerged as Nigeria’s first military Head of State. Whereas …
A rose by any other name
Despite a well-established colonial-era maritime culture enabled by large coastal territories and port settlements, and despite a similarly entrenched colonial military tradition on terra firma, solid earth, Nigeria lacked a navy by 1958, just two years before independence from Great Britain in 1960. A flurry of political activity between 1958 and 1963 gradually facilitated the creation of the Nigerian Navy. The new institution's structure, remit…
The Uthmān dan Fodiyo Jihād , colonial rule and Islamic authority in Northern Nigeria
This article revisits the Uthmān dan Fodiyo Jihād (c. 1804) and colonial rule’s advent in Northern Nigeria a century later. As key storytelling themes in Boko Haram’s discursive mechanisms, both are frequently referenced in the movement’s corpus. While extolling the Jihad’s puritanical and unifying virtues, Boko Haram decries the influences of colonial rule and Westernisation. The group then criticises Muslim leaders for acquiescing to the govern…
Before Boko Haram
Anti-establishment radicalism that embraces violence as a conflictual strategy seldom emerges ex nihilo. Especially with terror movements, longstanding anti-establishment traditions often inform the pivot towards bloodshed. Situating this argument in the northern Nigeria case, this paper examines how, decades before Boko Haram, there were growing tensions in Nigeria’s devoutly religious north around similar issues contested by Boko Haram. Such ma…
Framing” contentious activism
How does a terror movement like Boko Haram employ language and discourse towards collective action? This is the central question our paper addresses. Focusing on Boko Haram as a militant jihdist social movement organisation (SMO), our article shows how the movement's ideology, evidenced through its discourse, "frames" narratives that identify the problem, call for action and motivate adherents and potential recruits towards violent repertoires. U…
The Cold War and Air Force Politics in Independent Nigeria (1960–1962)
The term “military” within the Nigerian context tends to be a misnomer for the Army, with the Navy and Air Force often at the scholarship margins. This article presents a corrective: it shifts the emphasis from the Nigerian Army within the historical discourse on politics and its impact on the military in Nigeria. The paper instead examines the Cold War political origins of the Nigerian Air Force ( NAF ) as an under-researched service branch of t…
A Historical and Sociological Study of the Nigerian Air Force (1962 – 1970)
The Air Force in Nigeria is a compelling subject for sociological enquiry, with an entirely different formative process to the Army. At its inception in 1964, Army officers, not career airmen, commanded the force until 1975. However, whereas the Army cast a long shadow over NAF identity, the Air Force had other institutional pathologies. The “Quota System” of ethnicized recruitment within the military, introduced to balance out ethnic representat…
Lies or half-truths? Boko Haram’s ideology from a social movement theory perspective
Using Social Movement Theory (SMT) as a methodological framework and explicitly employing the core SMT concepts of political opportunism and framing, this paper seeks to examine Boko Haram's use of discourse in activism. As a rarely employed research method within the Boko Haram literature, SMT holds explanatory power around the movement's approach to transforming motivation potential into actual mobilisation via frame resonance. Focusing on the …
Framing Injustice
This article employs Social Movement Theory (SMT) to examine collective action mobilisation against malfeasance by Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squads (SARS). Created in the 1990s to counter armed gangs, SARS gradually became discredited. Finally, in October 2020, after weeks of public protest, the unit was disbanded. The #EndSARS movement proved instrumental here. The present article explores the origins, nature and decline of SARS until the #…
Fragility, Antifragility and War in Nigeria
Focusing on Biafra’s calculus of war to shed new light on the rebel-side debate, this article revisits the Civil War of Nigeria (1967–1970) to extract campaign lessons for the Nigerian Army (NA) in its fight against Boko Haram (BH). The paper uses Nassim Taleb’s ‘antifragility’ theory to explain why Biafra rebels crumbled under traditional military campaign stressors imposed on them. By contrast, Boko Haram’s ‘antifragile’ threat has grown, even …
Insurgency and War in Nigeria
Boko Haram is the major threat to the Nigerian state, and has emerged as a destabilizing factor across sub-Saharan Africa. This is now a major focus of global policy-making as between 2013 and 2014 insurgency-related deaths in Nigeria exceeded those in Iraq and Afghanistan. While much has been written about Boko Haram’s ideology and Islamism, very little has been written on the actual military nature of the organisation. This book is the first to…
Boko Haram's Covert Front
Waging a highly irregular war — an insurgency — in Northeast Nigeria since September 2010, Boko Haram over the years has escalated as a threat form. By 2014, this threat extended beyond Nigeria’s borders; and by 2017, thousands of people had become casualties of the conflict; with millions displaced in Northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram however did not necessarily achieve this threat escalation by fighting and defeating the Nigerian military on the ba…
Boko Haram's increasingly sophisticated military threat
This paper evaluates Boko Haram’s military capabilities and details the process of how its standing army, driven by these capabilities, came to pose a phased threat between 2013 and 2015 in particular. This was a period when military fighting dominated the insurgency in north-east Nigeria. Whereas there is an abundance of literature on Boko Haram’s histories and the impact of its insurgency on north-east Nigeria, analysis of Boko Haram’s military…
Counter-Insurgency in Nigeria
This book offers a detailed examination of the counter-insurgency operations undertaken by the Nigerian military against Boko Haram between 2011 and 2017. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted with military units in Nigeria, Counter-Insurgency in Nigeria has two main aims. First, it seeks to provide an understanding of the Nigerian military’s internal role – a role that today, as a result of internal threats, pivots towards counter-insurgency. T…
Lies or half-truths? Boko Haram’s ideology from a social movement theory perspective
Using Social Movement Theory (SMT) as a methodological framework and explicitly employing the core SMT concepts of political opportunism and framing, this paper seeks to examine Boko Haram's use of discourse in activism. As a rarely employed research method within the Boko Haram literature, SMT holds explanatory power around the movement's approach to transforming motivation potential into actual mobilisation via frame resonance. Focusing on the …
Boko Haram's increasingly sophisticated military threat
This paper evaluates Boko Haram’s military capabilities and details the process of how its standing army, driven by these capabilities, came to pose a phased threat between 2013 and 2015 in particular. This was a period when military fighting dominated the insurgency in north-east Nigeria. Whereas there is an abundance of literature on Boko Haram’s histories and the impact of its insurgency on north-east Nigeria, analysis of Boko Haram’s military…
Boko Haram's Covert Front
Waging a highly irregular war — an insurgency — in Northeast Nigeria since September 2010, Boko Haram over the years has escalated as a threat form. By 2014, this threat extended beyond Nigeria’s borders; and by 2017, thousands of people had become casualties of the conflict; with millions displaced in Northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram however did not necessarily achieve this threat escalation by fighting and defeating the Nigerian military on the ba…
A Historical and Sociological Study of the Nigerian Air Force (1962 – 1970)
The Air Force in Nigeria is a compelling subject for sociological enquiry, with an entirely different formative process to the Army. At its inception in 1964, Army officers, not career airmen, commanded the force until 1975. However, whereas the Army cast a long shadow over NAF identity, the Air Force had other institutional pathologies. The “Quota System” of ethnicized recruitment within the military, introduced to balance out ethnic representat…
Framing Injustice
This article employs Social Movement Theory (SMT) to examine collective action mobilisation against malfeasance by Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squads (SARS). Created in the 1990s to counter armed gangs, SARS gradually became discredited. Finally, in October 2020, after weeks of public protest, the unit was disbanded. The #EndSARS movement proved instrumental here. The present article explores the origins, nature and decline of SARS until the #…
Counter-Insurgency in Nigeria
This book offers a detailed examination of the counter-insurgency operations undertaken by the Nigerian military against Boko Haram between 2011 and 2017. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted with military units in Nigeria, Counter-Insurgency in Nigeria has two main aims. First, it seeks to provide an understanding of the Nigerian military’s internal role – a role that today, as a result of internal threats, pivots towards counter-insurgency. T…
Boko Haram's Covert Front
Waging a highly irregular war — an insurgency — in Northeast Nigeria since September 2010, Boko Haram over the years has escalated as a threat form. By 2014, this threat extended beyond Nigeria’s borders; and by 2017, thousands of people had become casualties of the conflict; with millions displaced in Northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram however did not necessarily achieve this threat escalation by fighting and defeating the Nigerian military on the ba…
Boko Haram's increasingly sophisticated military threat
This paper evaluates Boko Haram’s military capabilities and details the process of how its standing army, driven by these capabilities, came to pose a phased threat between 2013 and 2015 in particular. This was a period when military fighting dominated the insurgency in north-east Nigeria. Whereas there is an abundance of literature on Boko Haram’s histories and the impact of its insurgency on north-east Nigeria, analysis of Boko Haram’s military…
Insurgency and War in Nigeria
Boko Haram is the major threat to the Nigerian state, and has emerged as a destabilizing factor across sub-Saharan Africa. This is now a major focus of global policy-making as between 2013 and 2014 insurgency-related deaths in Nigeria exceeded those in Iraq and Afghanistan. While much has been written about Boko Haram’s ideology and Islamism, very little has been written on the actual military nature of the organisation. This book is the first to…
Fragility, Antifragility and War in Nigeria
Focusing on Biafra’s calculus of war to shed new light on the rebel-side debate, this article revisits the Civil War of Nigeria (1967–1970) to extract campaign lessons for the Nigerian Army (NA) in its fight against Boko Haram (BH). The paper uses Nassim Taleb’s ‘antifragility’ theory to explain why Biafra rebels crumbled under traditional military campaign stressors imposed on them. By contrast, Boko Haram’s ‘antifragile’ threat has grown, even …
A Historical and Sociological Study of the Nigerian Air Force (1962 – 1970)
The Air Force in Nigeria is a compelling subject for sociological enquiry, with an entirely different formative process to the Army. At its inception in 1964, Army officers, not career airmen, commanded the force until 1975. However, whereas the Army cast a long shadow over NAF identity, the Air Force had other institutional pathologies. The “Quota System” of ethnicized recruitment within the military, introduced to balance out ethnic representat…
Lies or half-truths? Boko Haram’s ideology from a social movement theory perspective
Using Social Movement Theory (SMT) as a methodological framework and explicitly employing the core SMT concepts of political opportunism and framing, this paper seeks to examine Boko Haram's use of discourse in activism. As a rarely employed research method within the Boko Haram literature, SMT holds explanatory power around the movement's approach to transforming motivation potential into actual mobilisation via frame resonance. Focusing on the …
Framing Injustice
This article employs Social Movement Theory (SMT) to examine collective action mobilisation against malfeasance by Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squads (SARS). Created in the 1990s to counter armed gangs, SARS gradually became discredited. Finally, in October 2020, after weeks of public protest, the unit was disbanded. The #EndSARS movement proved instrumental here. The present article explores the origins, nature and decline of SARS until the #…
The Cold War and Air Force Politics in Independent Nigeria (1960–1962)
The term “military” within the Nigerian context tends to be a misnomer for the Army, with the Navy and Air Force often at the scholarship margins. This article presents a corrective: it shifts the emphasis from the Nigerian Army within the historical discourse on politics and its impact on the military in Nigeria. The paper instead examines the Cold War political origins of the Nigerian Air Force ( NAF ) as an under-researched service branch of t…
Framing” contentious activism
How does a terror movement like Boko Haram employ language and discourse towards collective action? This is the central question our paper addresses. Focusing on Boko Haram as a militant jihdist social movement organisation (SMO), our article shows how the movement's ideology, evidenced through its discourse, "frames" narratives that identify the problem, call for action and motivate adherents and potential recruits towards violent repertoires. U…
Politics and the Nigerian Army (1965–1966)
Four years after Nigeria’s Independence (1960), its army remained headed by a British General Officer Commanding ( GOC ). Seeking to change this in April 1965, the government’s ‘Nigerianisation’ agenda saw Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo from Eastern Nigeria, appointed Army GOC by Prime Minister Balewa. Months later, in January 1966, military coupists assassinated Balewa, and Ironsi emerged as Nigeria’s first military Head of State. Whereas …
A rose by any other name
Despite a well-established colonial-era maritime culture enabled by large coastal territories and port settlements, and despite a similarly entrenched colonial military tradition on terra firma, solid earth, Nigeria lacked a navy by 1958, just two years before independence from Great Britain in 1960. A flurry of political activity between 1958 and 1963 gradually facilitated the creation of the Nigerian Navy. The new institution's structure, remit…
The Uthmān dan Fodiyo Jihād , colonial rule and Islamic authority in Northern Nigeria
This article revisits the Uthmān dan Fodiyo Jihād (c. 1804) and colonial rule’s advent in Northern Nigeria a century later. As key storytelling themes in Boko Haram’s discursive mechanisms, both are frequently referenced in the movement’s corpus. While extolling the Jihad’s puritanical and unifying virtues, Boko Haram decries the influences of colonial rule and Westernisation. The group then criticises Muslim leaders for acquiescing to the govern…
Before Boko Haram
Anti-establishment radicalism that embraces violence as a conflictual strategy seldom emerges ex nihilo. Especially with terror movements, longstanding anti-establishment traditions often inform the pivot towards bloodshed. Situating this argument in the northern Nigeria case, this paper examines how, decades before Boko Haram, there were growing tensions in Nigeria’s devoutly religious north around similar issues contested by Boko Haram. Such ma…
It Certainly Will Help if That Stopped’
As Nigeria's Federal Military Government confronted Biafran separatists during the Civil War (1967–1970), foreign involvement critically shaped its conduct and outcome. Drawing on archival and declassified sources, this article analyses how Britain's hesitant yet pivotal arms support, America's studied neutrality, and the Soviet Union's sustained military assistance influenced Federal strategy. It challenges conventional emphasis on Soviet airpow…
Today they are going to kill us”
This article examines the ethnicization of the Nigerian Army between 1957 and 1966, tracing how recruitment reforms transformed it from a meritocratic institution into one fractured by competing loyalties. We distinguish three intersecting cleavages—ethnic, regional, and sociological (linked to educational and training pipelines)—to show how the introduction of a regionally based “Quota System” reshaped officer cohorts, lowered professional thres…
Political science (14 works) · Politics (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence (10 works) · History (8 works) · Insurgency (8 works) · Boko haram (7 works) · Criminology (7 works) · Law (7 works)