At the inaugural News Agency of Nigeria Annual International Lecture in Abuja, President Bola Tinubu emphasized the vital significance of Nigeria’s Security and its influence on the Sahel Africa region. The speech was delivered by his National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. Under the theme “Insecurity in the Sahel (2008-2024): Dissecting Nigeria’s Challenges – Genesis, Impacts and Options,” the conference explored Nigeria’s role in mitigating security risks in the region. Tinubu linked the security of Nigeria to the region’s general stability, asserting that a safe Nigeria would equate to a stable Sahel, which would aid neighboring nations like Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Cameroon.
He emphasized the accomplishments of the administration in eliminating more than 300 terrorist leaders in the past year, which demonstrate the resolve of his administration to combat terrorism, banditry, abduction, and other criminal activities. The Tinubu administration has developed six major security goals to reduce insecurity, including bolstering institutions, encouraging accountability, and allocating funds for Infrastructure and job development to combat Poverty and inequality. In order to confront Boko Haram, banditry, and violent extremism, Tinubu advocated the employment of both kinetic (military operations) and non-kinetic (economic and social) measures.
Northern Nigeria suffers interchangeable issues with Sahel.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar, a former military head of state, observed that the Sahel has turned into a killing field, and that Nigeria’s security issues are entwined to the larger regional crises. He mentioned that Banditry and Terrorism claimed over 4,660 lives in the region in 2020, adding that the area still experiences high levels of violence. General Christopher Musa, the Chief of Defence Staff, attributes this instability to a confluence of domestic and international elements, such as poor governance, economic exclusion, environmental shifts, and wars originating in North Africa and the Middle East.
While Nigeria is not geographically part of the Sahel, its northern regions suffer from many similar environmental, security, and socioeconomic problems as the Sahel, including resource scarcity, violent extremism, and desertification. Concerns about climate change, resource shortages, and poor governance are common to both the Sahel and Nigeria, where jihadist networks are closely linked to the insurgencies led by Boko Haram and ISWAP. Due to the growing interdependence between Nigeria’s security and the stability of the larger Sahel, this overlap has resulted in considerable regional cooperation in military and development activities.
Emergence of extremist groups fuels fret over insecurity.
Furthermore, Nigeria frequently works with Sahelian nations on security projects such as the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), which encompasses Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. Political unrest, ethnic conflicts, poor governance, and the emergence of extremist organizations have all contributed to the increasing fret over Insecurity in the region. The region, which includes regions of Mauritania, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, has seen an increase in violence in recent years. As a result of the conflict, millions of people have had to flee their homes. Food shortages, declining health systems, and restricted access to essential services have all contributed to the region’s worsening humanitarian issues.
In 2023, the number of civilian casualties linked to violence by terrorist groups increased dramatically, with almost 4,000 fatalities in the first half of the year alone. Largely, in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad, there were about 6.3 million displaced people by 2023, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). By mid-2023, the Sahel region was estimated to have over 40 million people in need of humanitarian aid, according to UN estimates. Over 29 million people in the region experienced food insecurity, and 5.4 million children under five had acute malnutrition.
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International donors donated over $3 billion in humanitarian aid to the region in 2023, however this sum was below the requirements, which the UN estimated to be $4.5 billion. Before now, a variety of local, regional, and international measures have been employed in the region in an effort to increase security. The region has seen peacekeeping and conflict resolution operations by the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS, which have included supporting security sector reforms and mediating disputes between rival factions. Completely stabilizing the region would necessitate tackling long-term problems with governance, economic growth, and Climate Resilience in addition to the current security threats.