Assembling a Force to Defeat Boko Haram: How Nigeria Integrated the Market into its Counterinsurgency Strategy

In the context of an increased use of commercial soldiers in high-end conflict, this article investigates how the Nigerian government's reliance on the global market for force has helped its efforts to counter Boko Haram. The article shows, through a case study of Nigeria's counterinsurgency campaign against jihadist insurgents, that states in the developing world can augment their ability to provide effective public security by creating security assemblages. Moving beyond the normative debate about Private Military Companies (PMCs), this article highlights that public-private security arrangements can support the state in the developing world to live up to its role as a communal security provider. Nigeria's employment of the South African PMC Special Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection Ltd. (STTEP), helped it build an effective public-commercial partnership, thus providing the Nigerian Armed Forces (NAF) with capacity, capability and norms that were essential in their counterinsurgency struggle.