One of the most significant problems in Africa today is the issue of conflict resolution and
tackling insecurity. This was referred to as “Silencing the Guns” on the continent which ties in
well with the theme of the past Aswan Forum in Egypt tagged “The Africa We Want.”
In terms of the gains of the Aswan Forum, one takeaway was the sideline meeting between
President Muhammadu Buhari and the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, about the
security situation in Africa. Both leaders agreed to synergise and combat the menace of terrorists.
Already, Nigeria has shown commitment in fighting the scourge in the West African sub-region
by providing huge funds for the multinational ECOWAS standby force. Such intervention may
appear to be a significant plank of the solution but it is largely hollow and ineffective. Bandits
seem unstoppable as they carry out their agenda of violence and terror.
Conflicts in Africa can be very expensive in terms of the economic loss among other shortfalls in
the polity. It is estimated that the African continent loses about $18 billion annually to conflicts.
From statistics, conflicts have displaced about 65.5 million people globally, majority of whom
are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa is losing its youth and innocents to conflicts. Right now, the situations in South Sudan,
Somalia and many other parts of Africa do not present a happy picture. Libya is also in turmoil.
There is the issue of forced migration as a lot of Africans are leaving their countries because of
such tension.
Part of the reasons for the persistence of the hostility is that a lot of African countries do not have
the capacity institutionally to prevent conflicts which flare up in different places. There is a rise
in the number of non-state actors or terror groups and the franchise they are initiating and leaving
behind in the world including Africa. We have seen Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabab in East
Africa and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the West African sub-region.
The now undeniable crisis is beyond the capacity of any government built on accustomed and
regimented thought process, with its debilitating baggage of sectarian interests. The quality of
security on the African continent has been exposed to ridicule in the wake of the alarming rate at
which non-state actors are spreading from one country to another. The reasons are not far-
fetched. There is virtually no government presence in many rural communities; there are no
comprehensive health care centres; people are not uplifted; in some places, there are no roads,
and government officials hardly visit those places to share the feelings of the people, among
other factors. The local population is neglected as non-state actors and terrorist groups take
advantage of the situation to radicalise and recruit youths to perpetuate banditry and barbarous
acts against the soul of Africa.
What this has shown, beyond producing inverted results, is that the spiral of violence is blind,
and government intervention so far has not been able to put an effective handle to the problem.
Many African countries have inadequate numbers of security forces and insufficient weaponry to
successfully check insurgency. For instance, records indicate that Nigeria has only about 150,000
soldiers who are engaged in various joint task forces in almost all the thirty-six states of the
federation, carrying out policing duties. Equally worthy of mention is the fact that the required
number of personnel to man the various border posts within neighbouring countries is lacking.
No doubt, weak border control has led to porous territorial boundaries. This is evident in the
National Security Plan for 2020 released by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA)
which revealed that Nigeria is located on the periphery of some ungoverned spaces in
neighbouring countries particularly in the Sahelian region where drug trafficking, organised
crime, terrorism, challenges to democratic governance and piracy, hold sway. Some of these
challenges are also prevalent in some West African countries.
The issue of herdsmen and farmers’ clashes between Nigeria and Mali, for instance, is recorded
as having the highest number of deaths compared with Boko Haram in some of the sub-regional
countries that have had encounters with herdsmen and cattle rustling.
Agents of death such as terrorists, herdsmen and bandits move unhindered especially around the
Lake Chad Basin which consists of mostly West African countries. There are also unchecked
movements across boundaries as they transverse the borders of Central Africa Republic,
Southern Sudan, Sudan and Libya. Such porous borders aid arms proliferation, insurgency,
among other crimes.
It is very disheartening and discouraging for Africa to be facing security challenges and it
appears there are no concrete mitigation measures put in place to ensure that these emerging
threats are checked. That is why drawing attention to the peace and security architecture in
Africa is very critical. But there are certain factors that are lacking especially in terms of
coordination including collaboration on the implementation of coherent and cogent regional
strategies for stabilisation and recovery.
Africa cannot develop in the absence of peace and security. The Pan-African dream and vision
cannot be achieved in the absence of integration and unity. Our consciousness has to be
reawakened in terms of the need to act collectively to develop mechanisms to protect the
continent against conflicts.
There is a need for African leaders to concentrate on how to resolve conflicts and prevent them
from happening in the future. Steps should be taken to strengthen capacities of African
governments and states to develop resilience and mechanisms for conflict resolution. The
African Union Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) must be localised and decentralised to
regional and country levels so as to develop architecture for prevention. De-radicalisation and
counter-violence extremism should be some of the major ingredients of the security plan.
African leaders should learn from what happened in other countries, for instance, Pakistan and
Afghanistan. These two countries have been able to put in place international collaborative
efforts towards addressing terrorism and have drastically reduced the number of terror
organizations in their individual countries to very manageable levels.
Arab countries in Africa should emulate what has been put in place in the West African sub-
region so that they too can checkmate the infiltration of elements of al-Qaeda and the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Arab-Maghreb axis. The Lake Chad Basin multinational
joint task force should combine efforts with the G5 of the Sahel countries instead of operating in
silos. These will help in building strong partnerships and creating the synergy that are required in
countering terrorism.
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