Terrorism and institutional soft target attacks in Nigeria: the way forward

Almost five decades have passed since after the Nigerian civil war that claimed closed to five million lives between Nigerian and Biafran separatists. Yet, rather than learn lessons learnt to forestall peace, it is worrisome that the escalation of terror against state and its institutions has taken heightened dimensions at various times. It is this worry that gave vent to this theoretical paper that utilizes content analysis to explore relevant parameters that are factorial to this dangerous escalation of terror in Nigeria particularly targeting its institutions as helpless soft targets for attack. Consequently, the paper questioned institutional alienation, inequality, and unhealthy politicization of religion and education as largely responsible for the increasing terror attacks. Drawing from these insights, the paper using induction and deduction tools, outlined major ways forward in addressing the menace of terror. Inclusive governance, income redistribution, secularism as a functional state policy and liberalization of access to education according literature, were strong factors that point to solutions that can lead productive engagement and inclusive involvement in governance and decision-making process in order to ultimately encourage the de-escalation of terror attacks against state and its institutions.