Opinion: Nigeria must win battle for youth to beat Boko Haram

Editor's note: 'Funmi Olonisakin is the founding director of the African Leadership Centre, and director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group, at King's College London. (CNN) -- President Goodluck Jonathan's response to the Boko Haram insurgency, including his recently declared state of emergency in three northern Nigerian states, is eerily reminiscent of previous approaches to sectarian violence in that region. The Maitatsine uprising of 1980 is perhaps the single most important precedent-setting example. In December 1980, the confrontation between the Al-Masifu Islamic sect -- which advocated purity in the practice of Islam -- and the people of Kano came to a head. The Nigerian army and air force mounted a campaign against the sect. In the end, more than 4,000 people were dead with double this number injured alongside massive destruction of property. Times have certainly changed. Nigeria's population has doubled since the Maitatsine uprising. Nigeria continues to experience the "youth bulge" -- a growing youth population -- that was not planned for. The resulting pressure on socio-economic systems is evident in limited education and health and dwindling economic opportunities for young people.

Poor policies and bad planning have produced youth vulnerability and exclusion from mainstream life. This is doubly so in northern Nigeria, where class divides have further created a community of people with nothing to lose. Read this: Nigerians ask, are we at war? The global environment has also changed amid growing transnational threats. Al Qaeda continues to lurk in the neighborhood. Excluded groups in the region with affinity for Boko Haram are potential support networks amid an ever-rising flow of illicit weapons into the region. One thing has hardly changed: elite behavior. Nigeria's power elite remains far removed from the realities of life experienced by ordinary citizens. continued