Welcome to Foreign PolicyOverview of Africa.
Highlights this week: The US is expanding its joint military operations and Nigeria in the northeast of the country, Political division of Senegal is on the rise after the ousted prime minister was elected speaker of parliament, and the Trump administration plans to accept more European refugees from South Africa.
In recent weeks, joint US-Nigerian airstrikes have eliminated a the great leader of the Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP) and killed 175 militiamen in Nigeria, according to information from Washington and Abuja.
The expansion of US operations in the northeast, the epicenter of Nigeria’s insurgency, has been welcomed by Nigerians and politicians fed up with insecurity. So far, the joint strike has not resulted in civilian casualties, unlike the Nigerian-led strikes, which occasionally. accidentally killing civilians.
However, the experts told it Foreign Policy that Washington may find itself facing its own kind of hostility experience in the Sahel if military operations do not change Nigeria’s decades-old insurgency, which has in recent years turned into “compensation economy” while armed groups kill and kidnap civilians across the country for profit.
For many years, Abuja has been fighting several jihadist groups operating in northern Nigeria, including Boko Haram, which emerged as a terrorist group in 2009; the Sahelian Lakurawa group, which created the following year; and ISWAP, which they have separated from Boko Haram in 2016.
In the northwest, bandits operate from forest hideouts, engaging in mass kidnappings for ransom. Further south, in the Central Belt, nomadic Fulani herders, most of whom are Muslim, are moving south due to drought in the north, leading to fierce clashes with many Christian farmers over land and water.
Overall, the crisis in Nigeria reflects the failure of the government to provide security and basic funding for public services such as electricity, water and education.
Nigeria has been doing that time and time again strikes against these armed groups. However, Ladd Serwat, senior analyst for Africa at the Armed Conflict Area Data (ACLED) project, said that jihadists fill their ranks easily.
Some people who join these militant groups are forced “for their own safety, because of the lack of (government) authority or the belief that the rebels will provide them with better protection,” Serwat said.
Nigeria also has a large population out of school children international, especially in the north, and armed groups are heavily dependent employ children. “That’s the group these bad guys are recruiting from,” said Kabir Adamu, CEO of Abuja-based Beacon Security and Intelligence. “All you have to do is go around the urban areas in Nigeria and see the number of children who are on the streets doing what they shouldn’t be doing.”
About 30,000 people have been killed in violence in Nigeria since President Bola Tinubu came to power in 2023, according to ACLED data.
At the same time, hijackers work with indifference. Earlier this month, Boko Haram carried out a major school hijacking in Oyo state in southwestern Nigeria. Tinubu’s attack political spirit– which involved beheaded of a former mathematics teacher widely distributed online and the kidnapping of at least 46 students and teachers—marked a terrible expansion of the Nigerian rebellion.
last month, 416 people they were kidnapped by Boko Haram from Borno state. “Not a single person has been arrested and prosecuted” for the attack, Adamu said. “You cannot have a situation where there is no justice, there is no responsibility.”
The United States became increasingly vocal about Nigeria’s security situation at the end of last year. In October, the administration of US President Donald Trump reappointed Nigeria as a “Country of Concern” over false allegations of Christian genocide. (Actually, all faiths in Nigeria have been affected by violence.) Media reports have been affected he suggested that the move was driven by convince and Nigerian separatist groups.
In December, the United States carried out a strike against Lakurawa in the northwestern state of Sokoto in Nigeria, which residents said. failed kill any fighters. Lakurawa attack continued after the strikes. The following month, Trump warned of a “multiple strike” campaign if the Nigerian government failed to protect the Christian population.
Since then, Nigeria’s National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu has spent several months engage in diplomacy turning Washington’s disruptive rhetoric into joint military cooperation. Still, critics have claimed that 9 million Nigerian dollars has been spent on lobbying in Washington a mess time around 40 percent of Nigerians live below the global extreme poverty line of $3 per day per person.
Despite the reported success of recent collective strikes, experts have their doubts about the long-term success of the campaign. “I don’t think that airstrikes alone will be enough to deal with the insurgents. The insurgents … are concentrated in some areas within the civilian population,” Serwat said.
Washington’s purpose of “to protect Christians“It might even aggravate the rebellion, Adam questioned.” Jihadists “can use this as a basis for further recruitment in Nigeria, and say, ‘Come and join us so we can stop the spread of American politics in Nigeria,'” he said.
“Politically, it could also be bad for the government” ahead of next year’s general election, Adamu said, “since there is strong anti-American sentiment, especially in northern Nigeria.”
Friday, May 29: The United Nations Security Council is set to restore sanctions against South Sudan.
Monday, June 1: Ethiopia holds general elections. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is likely to win, and his ruling Prosperity party is expected to retain its parliamentary majority.
Political division of Senegal. On Tuesday, MPs selected Ousmane Sonko, the recently sacked prime minister of Senegal, as parliament speaker in a strong challenge against President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Faye broke up his cabinet and dismissal Sonko last week, following months of political tension between the former allies.
Faye ran inside presidential election 2024 as a candidate for the PASTEF party, led by Sonko, after the candidate was disqualified for defaming him. But since then, the party has faced internal discord over the International Monetary Fund (IMF) negotiations and Senegal’s handling of it. high debt to GDP ratio.
Monday, Faye name former banker Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo as the new prime minister. But with the political divide continuing, Sonko could be strong, with PASTEF—which remains loyal to Sonko—controlling 130 of the 165 seats in Senegal’s parliament.
Colombian fighters of Sudan. The United Arab Emirates has recruited Colombian mercenaries to help fight alongside the Rapid Response Force (RSF) in Sudan, according to new report and Human Rights Watch.
The civil war in Sudan, which broke out between the RSF and the Sudanese army in April 2023, has left more than 150,000 people dead and displaced. 14 million. The UAE has reportedly supported the RSF since the conflict began, leading to the Sudanese government to accuse of “complicity in genocide” – a claim the UAE has denied.
African refugees. The Trump administration plans to allow another 10,000 white South Africans into the United States, claiming they face a “refugee emergency” due to “unforeseen events in South Africa.” according to in a State Department notice sent to Congress last week.
That decision, which could cost Washington more 100 million dollarsincreases the Trump administration’s cap on refugees to 17,500. Almost all refugees admitted to the country in Trump’s second term have been African.
Agreement between France and Botswana. Following her to fall and Niger’s military government, French state-owned nuclear giant Orano has shifted its focus to more than 800,000 tonnes of unused uranium reserves in Botswana.
After months of media speculation Regarding the plan, Botswana President Duma Boko confirmed earlier this month at the Africa Forward Conference jointly organized by France and Kenya that Orano Botswana, which was registered as a company on April 10, has acquired exploration rights.
“It’s not something that starts now,” Boko he told it BBC Focus on Africa. “They already have mining licenses, and we expect that they will drill, search, establish different amounts of uranium deposits.”
For Botswana, the world’s leading diamond producer, the agreement is part of its drive to transform its economy as buyers turn to manufactured diamonds.
Arsenal’s African identity. Videos circulating online last week showed fans across Africa celebrating Arsenal’s first Premier League title in 22 years. In Africa Is The Country, Sean Henry Jacobs he argues that this should not be surprising because the football club is basically African.
Before Arsène Wenger as manager of Arsenal between 1996 and 2018, Arsenal had recruited very little from Africa. However, Jacobs writes, by “2025, more than two dozen African-born players had played for Arsenal, largely due to Wenger’s work.”
Virginia Woolf in Lagos. For TV Channels, Nebianet Signature report about filmmaking twins Arie and Chuko Esiri, whose adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway in the movie Clarissa was critically acclaimed at the Cannes Film Festival this month.
Filmed and set in contemporary Lagos, the story follows a high society woman preparing to host a party and features British and American actors in the diaspora alongside Nigerian Nollywood stars.
“In a beautiful piece of footage,” Usaini writes, “the film captures a striking image in the form of Nigeria that rich hosts can’t seem to match.” Chuko Esiri said in Cannes that the artwork is “the absolute motivation of the nation. It’s a bit off and needs to be corrected … but no one knows how.”
