Sub-Saharan Africa is in the eyes of a storm with unimaginable gaps erupting from the disruptive pandemic in 2019—epitomising challenges of complex emergencies in West Africa.
The changing dynamics of the region’s geopolitical environment, vulnerabilities in the Gulf of Guinea, the Sahel Sahara divide, climate change and other environmental degradation are factors militating against the tranquility of the rich and strategically important region of the African continent and the world at large.
Countries like Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, etc. are believed to be ripping from the seeds of poor political and resource governance capacity which has over the years nurtured corruption, uncertainty, and acute insecurity in West African states. Though richly endowed with natural, human, and material resources, the region remains one of the most impoverished in the world. The International Peace Institute in its journal on West Africa Governance and Security blamed the anomaly on climate change, criminality propelled poverty, dearth of leadership and an unprogressive regional and sub-regional politics and power play. For instance, Nigeria and Niger have in the last decade grappled with the effects of porous borderlines, rural banditry, and terrorism which has led to food insufficiency with a population of over 70 million people in Nigeria, for instance, living below poverty line, yet Nigeria and other affected countries remain entangled in their fight against terrorism– findings from a civil society organization, the Centre for Democracy and Development in West Africa shows that the raging violence and insurgent attacks within the region are often due to existing poor criminal justice system, ethnic profiling and poverty. So far several thousand have been killed with more than a million persons displaced from their ancestral lands in Northern Nigeria alone.
The emerging security challenges
Political instability, corruption, and bad governance in many countries in West African have sprung-up fresh waves of violent insurgency, institutional corruption, greed and repressive security rackets. A development believed to have remotely inflamed the relative peace in some of these countries, forcefully instituting military leadership through coups as was the case with the recent Mali military coup where the junta-transitionary government has defied all pressures from internal community to fasten the return of democratically-elected rulers and constitutional rules. Africa has also witnessed more coups and attempted overthrow of democratically elected governments—this highlights the vulnerability of the region and festering extremism and transnational criminality breeding across the borderlines and territories of countries within the region.
The sustained pattern of conflicts and unabated killings of civilians by armed bandits and a perceived ethnic cleansing in most rural communities across Nigeria, for instance, spiked in 2021 with a record of 2,600 deaths; an increase of 250 percent compared with 2020. More civilian deaths have also been recorded in 2022. These armed extremist groups namely Boko Haram, the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), killer herdsmen and the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), in synergy with other militia groups—from within and outside Sub-Saharan Africa–have perpetuated mass atrocities in Nigeria.
Calming this tide is a daunting challenge for affected countries’ governments in West Africa, including Nigeria where the armed forces have been deployed in two-thirds of the states, overstretching its personnel and hardware as insurgent groups expand their areas of rural and urban operations. Despite notable progress from the regional multinational joint task forces against these non-state actors, civilians remain at risk of terrorist attacks and identity-based violence.
For every terrorist attack comes an unimaginable number of causalities, displacement, hunger and human debasement of mostly women and children requiring urgent care, but who are most often than not abandoned by those obligated by oath to protect their lives and property.
Social protection for insurgent victims
The astronomical increase in causalities, human displacement and exposure to food insecurity, and the spread of infectious diseases including a forceful denial of the right to education is a reality which may precipitate a catastrophic disaster for a vulnerable population of wounded persons likely to affect the rest of the world negatively through secondary association and multiplication of unplanned chaos and splinter violent groups.
In actual fact, the recurrence of insurgent attacks on civilians and communities in both rural and urban settlements can be psychologically draining for both the government and the victims—most of whom are now in a state of despondency. There is, therefore, no gainsaying that people especially women and children living in war-torn or affected areas in West African countries experience grave violations of socio-economic and political rights with their futures hanging in the balance- a case in point is the ever-increasing disruption of essential social services like education, healthcare, water and sanitation –softly targeted on the rights to life of women and children largely in northern Nigeria most of whom are victims of sexual exploitation and weapons of war
The pandemic era was of no good to many West African countries following heightened reports of jihadist insurgencies in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria spilling over to neighbouring countries like Ghana, Benin and Cote d’Ivoire, thus, calling for immediate intervention and stronger security collaboration from regional and international bodies like the United Nations, the G20 countries, Africa Union, G5 Sahel Joint Force and the Multinational Joint Taskforce in the region.
The perturbing state of affairs in this region requires a change in the peacebuilding mechanisms used by international bodies to curb or arrest the seemingly imminent disaster in Sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, admitting Nigeria as a full member of the G20 will most certainly be beneficial to the global body considering its pool of human resources and track records in curtailing acts of terrorism in not just Nigeria but Africa at large. Nigeria’s membership will mean a proper representation of West African countries in G20 as far as understanding the complexities of the prolonged development in the region is concerned bearing in mind the global importance of the world’s largest economies “the G20 countries” to coordinating global policies for sustainable and balanced global growth and security.
Although there are concerns over the limitations in world bodies’ decision-making, especially as regards Africa’s security and economic development which are often downplayed by first-world countries, the G-20 has in the last decade proven to be a bridge builder and a more workable proxy for the United Nations Security Council where Africa and others are seeking permanent representation. By seating developed and at least emerging if not developing nations around the same table, the G20 countries distinguished themselves from other formations like the G77+China in charting a new course for Africa and Africans in providing opportunities for efficient and effective Africa-driven-methods which expectedly will bring about sustainable peace and development to the African continent through greater collaborations, economic interdependence of countries and world powers particularly those in the G20.
(This essay is a part of the commentary series on G20-Think20 Task Force 3: LiFE, Resilience, and Values for Wellbeing)
