Countering what? Masculinized security approach and the marginality of women’s agency in countering violent extremism in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria’s militarized, state-centric approach to countering violent extremism (CVE) has constrained sustainable peacebuilding by prioritizing coercive security responses while neglecting the social and gendered dimensions of insecurity. Women are frequently portrayed as passive victims or peripheral actors, obscuring their critical contributions to peacebuilding, community mobilization, intelligence gathering, and conflict mediation. Although existing scholarship acknowledges gender exclusion within CVE, limited attention has been paid to the institutional and historical mechanisms that systematically marginalize women’s participation. This study addresses this gap by applying decolonial feminist security perspectives to examine how colonial legacies, patriarchal norms, and state-centered security institutions shape women’s exclusion from CVE policy and practice in Nigeria. The analysis draws on a qualitative review of national CVE policies, institutional documents, and scholarly literature published between 2006 and 2025, using systematic coding and thematic analysis to identify dominant narratives, silences, and gendered exclusions. The findings demonstrate that exclusionary institutional practices undermine the effectiveness of CVE by overlooking women’s agency and local knowledge. The study concludes that inclusive, context-sensitive, and gender-responsive approaches are essential for addressing structural injustices and strengthening sustainable counter-extremism efforts in Nigeria.