This year has been bad for Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and third economy by GDP after South Africa and Egypt. Hardly halfway through the year, a bloodbath orchestrated by Boko Haram, a shadowy insurgency group linked to Al Qaeda has claimed well over 500 people. April was particularly horrific as the organization – labeled terrorist – attacked Christian churches, university campuses, livestock markets and other businesses, government installations and quite symbolically, one of Nigeria's mainstream newspapers – This Day.

Bewildered, angry and fearful of the attacks, Nigerian in and outside the country have been pouring onto the streets to protest and demonstrate against the rising death toll, thought to be approximating over 1,000 since the group emerged in the early 2000s.

No single incident of the carnage is better than the other but perhaps sticking out for sheer daring is the case of an indiscriminate shooting incident at an open air livestock market in northern Nigeria during which over 50 people were killed and more injured and traumatized.  

The stated goals of the radical Islamist sect whose name – Boko Haram – roughly translates to "Western education is forbidden" is to wage a jihadist war with intentions of establishing a strict version of Islamic rule all over Nigeria. Northern Nigeria is largely Islamic and pastoralist while the more prosperous south is mainly Christian and agricultural. The south is also resource rich especially in oil and is the driving engine with commercial centers such as the port city of Lagos. Analysts have pointed out that the geographical, religious and ethnic divide as well as the resource parity between the north and the south are the underlying causes fuelling the insurgency.

The insurgency, employing unconventional warfare tactics characteristic of radical political Islam, has shattered Nigeria's attempt to break with the governance related causes of underdevelopment in the past. The country was just starting to emerge from decades of misrule during which military coups and dictatorship placed it among the most ill governed country in the world. The new threat to stability also comes when another war in the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria was lessening in prominence, a development that had been touted as an opportunity for the country to direct its energies on prosperity.

Analysts have pointed out that Boko Haram became emboldened after the current President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, took over the reign of power after the death of then President Umaru Yar'Adua in 2010. Some viewpoints are that from a group of disgruntled northerners merely reacting to poverty in the north and using religion as an excuse to cause mayhem, some politicians are now using it to actively oppose perceived dominance by the south.

What has made the situation worse is that a link is being discerned with the Islam Maghreb section of Al Qaeda known to be active in countries such as Niger, Chad and other northern Africa countries. This has become an unsettling matter given that radical Muslim could penetrate from the north and bleed deep into Sub-Saharan Africa. A case in point is the coup in Mali where Touareg rebels precipitated a coup and have proceeded to declare an independent state in the northern reaches of the country.

Against the backdrop of the rising toll of suicide bombs and drive by bombings, the Nigerian Government's reaction has been described as weak and overwhelmed. Worrying is the fact that Abuja, the administrative and political capital since 1991, has not been spared the violence. Exasperated, some leaders in the south have gone as far as suggesting that the south should delink with the north and leave the northerners to their own devices. Attempts at mediation and negotiations with the rebels have floundered, and the capacity of the disciplined forces to pacify the situation have been largely ineffectual.

There seems to be no firm solution to the conflict at this point in time!

Worse still, the indiscriminate but highly coordinated nature of the rebels is such that not even moderate Muslims have been spared. The case of the attacks in April illustrates the "shock and awe" approach where various areas are targeted simultaneously leaving government forces scrambling for a response.

With the economic and political motivations fueling the insurgency, the attempt to introduce Sharia law and the traditional south-north socio-economic fault lines, it would appear that Nigeria must brace itself for a long period of destabilization.