Studies in Conflict & Terrorism has retracted a 2013 article about Boko Haram, the Nigerian extremist group accused of massacres and, recently, the kidnapping of approximately 276 schoolgirls in that country.
Here’s the notice, which pretty much says it all:
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism acknowledges that the accepted research note titled, “The Trilogy Links: JAMBS (Ansaru), Boko Haram and AQIM in Nigeria”, by Oluwaseun Bamidele, which was published as an Author’s Accepted Manuscript, of the journal inappropriately contained verbatim taken material from, and also failed to acknowledge as source, the following article:
Zenn, Jacob, “Cooperation or Competition: Boko Haram and Ansaru After the Mali Intervention”, CTC Sentinel (Combating Terrorism Center, West Point), vol. 6, no. 3 (March 2013), pp. 1-8. http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/CTCSentinel-Vol6 Iss3.pdf
The Editor-in-Chief apologies unreservedly to the author of the above article, Jacob Zenn, and to the CTC Sentinel, for this violation of scholarly convention—as well to readers of Studies in Conflict & Terrorism both for publishing the plagiarized material in the research note and failing to detect this transgression during the editorial process.
The author of the research note that inappropriately incorporated research and writing done by Mr. Zenn has now written to the Editor-in-Chief to accept responsibility, and apologize for, this act of plagiarism. The letter sent to Studies in Conflict & Terrorism is appended immediately below.
Bruce Hoffman
Editor-in-Chief
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
The notice includes an apology from Bamidele:
Letter from Oluwaseun Bamidele:
I hereby write in respect to the acquisition on plagiarism of Jacob Zenn Publication titled “Cooperation or Competition: Boko Haram and Ansaru After the Mali Intervention”.
I humbly apologized that I inadvertently incorporated work that was not my own in my article and failed to properly cite or acknowledge that work.
Thank you for your heartfelt understanding and consideration.
Yours sincerely,
Oluwaseun Bamidele
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So, why was this not detected during peer review? Shame on Bamidele, but pathetic quality cntrol by Routledge. 10 years ago, one could say that there were insufficient tools to detect plagiarism, but in 2013?!! Incidentally, what is “acquisition on plagiarism”? The scientific community should watch carefully to see if Oluwaseun Bamidele pushes his paper, plagiarized or not, towards another venue.
The author has also had the following works retracted for “substantially similar to a previously published work”:
Bamidele, Oluwaseun (2013). Climate Change, War, and Global Struggle.
Peace Review, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 510–517. DOI:10.1080/10402659.2013.
846163. Version of Record published online 26 November 2013. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10402659.2016.1176799)
Bamidele, Oluwaseun (2012). Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration
of Children in Armed Conflict. Peace Review, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 284–291.
DOI:10.1080/10402659.2012.704251. Version of Record published online 20 August
2012. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10402659.2016.1176798)
More retractions of work by the same author:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14702436.2016.1165967
We, the Editors of Defence Studies and the publishers Taylor & Francis Group are retracting the following article:
Bamidele, Oluwaseun (2013) Domestic Terrorism in Nigeria: The Grown ‘Monster’ Within! Defence Studies, Vol. 13, No. 4. DOI: 10.1080/14702436.2013.845382. Version of Record published online 21 Feb 2014.
We are now cognisant that the article is substantially similar to a previously published work:
Ude Asue, Daniel (2012) Muslim Youth in Search of Identity in Nigeria: The case of Boko Haram Violence. The International Journal of African Catholicism, Winter 2012, pp. 22–38
We note this previously published work has not been referenced in the retracted article.
This action constitutes a breach of warranties made by the author with respect to originality and provenance. We note we received, peer-reviewed, accepted, and published the article in good faith based on these warranties, and censure this action.
The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.
Several published papers from the same author have been retracted; there are up to 18 entries of retractions at http://www.tandfonline; link below:
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/doSearch?AllField=bamidele+retracted&pageSize=20&subjectTitle=&startPage=1
.