Fighting Insecurity and Cross-Border Terrorism in West Africa with Public Relations

This study assessed the effects of and potentials of public relations (PR) activities on fighting insecurity and cross-border terrorism. The study focused on community engagement, youth empowerment, community gatekeepers and intelligence gathering as proxies to measure the effect of PR in the fight. Anchoring the study on the theories of frustration-aggression, differential association, as well as the transfer process model, we generated data primarily from 1200 respondents selected using a multi-staged sampling technique. Analysis was done using both descriptive and inferential statistics; the four objectives of the study were attained, and the research question was answered. The results from the use of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics of logistic regression show that Public Relations Activities (PRA) have made significant influence on community engagement, youth empowerment, community gatekeepers and intelligence gathering to fight insecurity and curtail cross-border terrorism. The study also confirms that PRA have enormous potential yet to be harnessed, the odds ratios are high, showing that any unit increase in PRA effort creates significant impacts on winning the fight. Therefore, the study contributes to the body of knowledge by recommending more efficient usage of PR in amending the battered image of governments of the West African nations, as well as military collaboration, intelligence sharing, and logical prosecution of suspects to enhance public acceptability.