Environmental degradation associated with the petroleum industry in the Niger Delta impacts directly on the livelihoods of indigenous farmers and fishermen. Environmental issues were an important basis for popular support, or at least acquiescence, for the low level insurgency carried out against the federal and state governments by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) between 2004 and 2007, with sporadic activities continuing into the present. Read more »

There has been press speculation that the United States is going to establish a drone base in Niger. They claim that the drones would initially be for surveillance, but they could later be armed. Read more »

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been active in sub-Saharan Africa. Seven investigations have been launched in Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, and Mali. Four prominent Kenyan politicians are due for trial in The Hague in April 2013. One of them, Uhuru Kenyatta, is a leading candidate in the upcoming Kenya presidential elections. Should he win, the new Kenyan head of state would start his term under ICC indictment. About half of sub-Saharan Africa accepts ICC jurisdiction. The United States does not. Read more »

The Roman Catholic Church has suspended its participation in meetings at the national level of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The Catholic bishops stated that “CAN is being dragged into partisan politics thereby compromising its ability to carry out its true role as conscience of the nation and the voice of the voiceless.” The current CAN president, Ayo Oritsejafor, has been an outspoken supporter of President Goodluck Jonathan and the governing Peoples Democratic Party. In reaction to the Catholic suspension of its participation, one CAN spokesman has said that they are “free to go.” He also accused them of “arrogance” and claimed they were angry because the presidency had moved to the Pentecostals. Read more »

The confluence of a radical Islamist push toward the south in Mali, the consequent French intervention, a raid on a natural gas facility near In Amenas, Algeria, and Secretary Clinton’s congressional testimony on Benghazi on January 23, are generating the largely unexamined view that the war on terrorism with an al-Qaeda focus is underway in the Sahel-Sahara region of West Africa. The attack on In Amenas and the resulting tragic loss of life has particularly focused international attention. Read more »

I blogged previously that the Islamist occupation in northern Mali is inherently unstable. It includes Tuaregs as well as “Arabs,” who regard themselves as “white,” ruling over a population most of which it regards as “black.” Political maneuverings among those calling the shots amounts to little more than warlordism or competition among criminal syndicates dressed up in Islamic rhetoric. If there was a credible government in Bamako, there is a chance the northern coalition would collapse under its own weight. Read more »

High profile, violent killings have taken place in northern Nigeria at the same time as the French intervention in Mali.

On January 19, the emir of Kano barely survived an assassination attempt that wounded two of his sons, and killed four others. Read more »

Mali and Algeria have largely driven Nigeria out of the headlines over the past several days, except with respect to Nigerian troop commitments to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intervention force. Serious and informed speculation about the relationship between Boko Haram, militants in Mali, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has also been largely absent. Read more »

What a difference a fortnight can make.

On January 7, 2013, the eve of the Islamist feint south, the Jonathan government announced that it was reducing its troop pledge for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Mali intervention force that was to be deployed in September 2013. Nigeria would contribute 450 troops, not 600. It also signaled that it would be unable to bear the lion’s share of the costs, as it had in previous ECOWAS interventions in African states to restore or maintain security. But, in the aftermath of the French intervention, the Jonathan government reversed its course to significantly increase that contribution. On January 17, the Nigerian Senate approved deployment of 1,200 troops. Some Nigerian troops have been on the ground in Mali for a few days already, according to the Abuja government. Read more »

Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s group Al Mulathameen (translated by the New York Times as “The Brigade of the Masked Ones”) kidnapped more than forty international workers from the Algerian natural gas field, ln Amenas, which lies along the middle of Algeria’s eastern border with Libya. The attack was ostensibly in retaliation for French intervention in Mali, and specifically, the Algerian government’s decision to allow French military planes through their air space en route to Mali.  And that seems to be the assumption of much of the Western press commentary. Read more »