Gender Responsive Reporting of Boko Haram Terrorism in Nigeria, 2009-2021

Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad (JAS) also known as Boko Haram, changed the gender dynamics of terrorism in Nigeria, and raised the profile of women to active perpetrators in non-state violent extremism. Yet, a large part of news reports on both local and international media, were not gender sensitive to the female terrorists due to mainstream assumptions on defined gender roles, and norms for women and men. Although the feminisation of Boko Haram terrorist operations began 2012-2013, the gendered nature of the violence went unreported until the kidnap of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014. Extensive academic works on the media coverage of Boko Haram between 2009 and 2021, focused on how reports escalated the warfare while overlooking female violent nonstate actors. Using the history method of qualitative research design and methodology, oral interviews and relevant secondary data were gathered and evaluated. The population study included male and female Boko Haram combatants, journalists from the NTA, CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC and Channels Television, retired and serving Nigerian Army generals, and aid workers who worked in the north-east within the period under study. Key findings of this thesis were that: beyond women victims, there were females terrorists within the sect who executed agency; frontline journalists encountered practical difficulties that ranged from military interference, to socio-cultural challenges that further enforced gender stereotypes and; the dominant news frames employed by the five media organisations under study amplified military propaganda, humanitarian crises, and women victimhood. Therefore, the study concluded there was an absence of gender responsive reporting on the extent of females participation in Boko Haram violent extremism. This culminated in the inaccurate portrayal of the depth of women’s involvement in Boko Haram, and providing them spaces of invincibility.