“In times of conflict, the loudest voices often drown out the most important ones, but what if true peace begins when those who suffered most get to tell their own stories?” – Tales of Turning Digital Peacebuilders (2025)1

Introduction

This essay rethinks deradicalization by centering the voices of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in north-east Nigeria. It examines how IDPs discursively construct their experiences of displacement, trauma, and resilience through stance-taking and appraisal, and how these narratives articulate meanings that are often absent from deradicalization discourses. Drawing on the lived experiences of IDPs, the essay shows how their narratives complicate and challenge dominant state-led reintegration frameworks, revealing their limitations and silences. In doing so, I argue that a more inclusive engagement with these narratives can inform the reconfiguration of deradicalization policies in ways that are context-sensitive, socially grounded, and more conducive to sustainable peace. Situated within this broader concern for sustainable peace, and before turning to the analysis of IDP narratives, it is important to briefly outline the policy landscape within which deradicalization operates in North-East Nigeria.

Nigeria’s Deradicalization Agenda

In regions emerging from conflict, such as Northeast Nigeria, various strategies are being employed to achieve sustainable peace.2 The Nigerian government has acknowledged that a solely military approach will not effectively eradicate insurgency. As a result, it has introduced alternative measures, including deradicalization programs such as the Operation Safe Corridor (OSC), launched in 2016 under the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), that incorporate dialogue and amnesty, aimed at educating and rehabilitating non-state actors for reintegration into society after exposure to radicalism. Unfortunately, as Ogunnubi and Uchenna noted,3 these programs are largely shaped by top-down presidential directives that prioritize non-state armed actors while remaining disconnected from the lived realities of victims and communities most affected by violence,4  including internally displaced persons (IDPs). As a result, policy processes often target those with guns, while the voices of those who have suffered most are marginalized. This oversight is particularly concerning given that, according to the UN, approximately 3.9 million people have been displaced due to the Boko Haram crisis. Ignoring the perspectives and agency of internally displaced persons (IDPs) limits their potential contributions to peacebuilding efforts.

Data Analysis

This section, drawing on Hyland’s (2005) model of stance and Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework, presents an empirical analysis of interview data from Internally Displaced Persons in Marte Local Government Area of Borno State, examining how their experiences of displacement are linguistically constructed through stance-taking and appraisal to express loss, trauma, resilience, and identity.

 First speaker’s excerpt:

When Boko Haram sent us, we escaped to Maiduguri and settled there. There was no food, and no one was bringing any. We were just struggling to bring food home, with no place to stay. Boko Haram had dominated and taken over our area. Apart from that, we didn’t know where we were. Initially, the government brought food, and later on, NGOs did, but they have stopped. They left us with hunger and no place to farm. We are just managing; when someone goes to the outskirts of the town, Boko Haram kills them. We didn’t find any peace. Some have become laborers, and some are selling cucumbers, others, beans etc. All of us IDPs are in the same situation. We are suffering; we know how to farm. It is the rainy season, yet we are still hungry. We left our villages and, up to now, haven’t returned to our areas. We are suffering; without food, there will be no peace.5

The excerpt opens with a vivid recounting of forced displacement following Boko Haram’s attack and the precarious conditions encountered upon arrival in Maiduguri. The repeated use of collective engagement markers such as “we,” “us,” and “our” foregrounds a shared identity and communal experience, positioning the speaker not as an isolated victim but as a representative voice for a wider displaced population. For example, the material process “we escaped to Maiduguri and settled there” constructs displacement as a collective and coerced movement, emphasizing the sudden rupture of social and spatial stability. In Hyland’s view,6  this inclusive stance functions to build solidarity and align the audience with the speaker’s communal suffering.

The statement “Boko Haram had dominated and taken over our area” is articulated through monoglossic engagement, presenting the cause of displacement as an uncontested and self-evident fact. As Martin and White argue,7 monoglossia closes alternative viewpoints and asserts authority. Here, it reinforces the inevitability of flight and frames insurgent violence as the primary driver of displacement. This linguistic certainty contrasts sharply with the uncertainty that characterizes life after displacement, highlighting the asymmetry between the clarity of the threat and the ambiguity of post-conflict recovery.

A central theme in the narrative is the persistent lack of food and the withdrawal of institutional support. The existential process “There was no food, and no one was bringing any,” employs negative appreciation to evaluate material conditions as critically deficient. This appraisal positions hunger not merely as hardship but as a moral failure of the systems responsible for protection and care. The clause “Initially, the government brought food, and later NGOs did, but they have stopped” carries an implicit negative judgment, constructing state and humanitarian actors as inconsistent and ultimately absent. The monoglossic framing of “they left us with hunger” further intensifies this sense of abandonment, presenting it as a lived reality rather than a debatable claim.

The repeated lexical item “suffering” functions as an attitude marker that accumulates affective force across the narrative, conveying both physical deprivation and emotional exhaustion. Similarly, the material process “we didn’t find any peace”acts as a booster, amplifying the speaker’s distress and explicitly linking material insecurity to the absence of peace. This articulation challenges narrow, security-centered understandings of peace by foregrounding everyday survival as its prerequisite.

Despite these conditions, the narrative also encodes resilience, though in a restrained and cautious manner. The relational process “we are just managing” exemplifies hedging, which Hyland describes as a strategy for tempering claims while signaling perseverance.8 Rather than celebrating resilience, the hedge conveys endurance under constraint, avoiding romanticized portrayals of coping. This is reinforced by the contrastive structure “it is the rainy season, yet we are still hungry,” in which the conjunction “yet” intensifies the disjunction between natural expectations of abundance and the lived reality of deprivation. Through graduation, this contrast amplifies the abnormality and injustice of their situation.9

The concluding circumstantial relation, “without food, there will be no peace,” is particularly significant in peacebuilding discourse. Linguistically, it employs graduation to heighten impact; discursively, it reframes peace as inseparable from material security. This assertion directly contests dominant deradicalization and reintegration narratives that prioritize ideological transformation or security stabilization while neglecting livelihood restoration and food security. The speaker’s formulation positions peace not as an abstract outcome of policy, but as an embodied condition rooted in everyday access to basic necessities.

Furthermore, the existential process “all of us IDPs are in the same situation” reinforces a collective identity and shared marginalization. As Hyland notes, such inclusive markers foster empathy and communal alignment, enabling displaced individuals to articulate a collective political voice.10 In the context of peacebuilding, this collective stance is crucial: it signals that reintegration cannot be addressed through individualized deradicalization programs alone, but must engage broader structural conditions affecting displaced communities as a whole.

Conclusion

In conclusion, attention is paid not only to what is narrated, but to how language is mobilized to position the individual, relate to others, and make sense of prolonged insecurity and marginalization. The narrative, more importantly, demonstrates how IDPs use stance-taking and appraisal not only to recount trauma, but to make evaluative claims about peace, justice, and responsibility through foregrounding hunger, abandonment, and insecurity. By emphasizing hunger, abandonment, and everyday insecurity, the IDPs narratives reminds us that peace is not an abstract policy goal but a condition of daily survival. From this perspective, sustainable peace means having enough food to eat, a way to earn a living, and the assurance that support will not suddenly disappear. Taking such narratives seriously within peacebuilding and deradicalization frameworks shifts attention toward what displaced people themselves identify as urgent (food security, livelihood recovery, and reliable institutional care), thereby grounding post-conflict recovery in the material realities and emotional wounds that continue to shape life after violent conflict.

Endnotes

  1. Tales of Turning Digital Peacebuilders (2025) https://talesofturning.co.za/about
  2. Del Castillo, G. (2016). “Economic Reconstruction and Reforms in Post-Conflict Countries”. In Langer, A., & Brown, G.K. (Eds.), Building Sustainable Peace: Timing and Sequencing of Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Peacebuilding, Pp.51-71. Oxford University Press.
  3. Ogunnubi, Olusola, and Uchenna A. Aja. 2024. “The De-radicalization, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration Initiative within Nigeria’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy: Contextualizing Operation Safe Corridor.” African Identities 22, no. 3: 811–827. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725843.2023.2245678.
  4. Sambo, Usman, and Babayo Sule. 2025. Deradicalization and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in Northeast Nigeria: Counteracting Boko Haram’s Extremism. Routledge.
  5. Focus group discussion with Internally Displaced Persons, Marte Local Government Area, Borno State, Nigeria, conducted by the author, August 15 2025.
  6. Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. Continuum.
  7. Martin, J. R., and Peter R. R. White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan
  8. Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. Continuum.
  9. Martin, J. R., and Peter R. R. White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan
  10. Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. Continuum.