Africa: Security and Conflict

The writing of this book is born out of the desire to assess Africa’s shrewd and appalling responses to the myriad of security and defence threats and challenges that undermine its supranational sovereignties. Undoubtedly, any thesis on the bane of Africa’s underdevelopment and insecurity, to a large extent, cannot entirely extricate itself from the socio-political and economic fault lines that have been either left unaddressed, poorly handled or allowed to worsen by the vagaries of violent armed conflicts raging in some parts of the continent. The book has attempted to articulate some of the potpourri of socio-political and economic fault lines that either create such conflicts or exacerbate existing conflicts around the continent. Consequently, on the basis of international law, this book examines the imperatives for defence and security sector reforms, which were enunciated and vigorously implemented to eliminate threats to international peace and solidarity anywhere in the continent. These defence and security sector reforms appear in the guise of policy thrusts to leverage on balance of terror and national security. More importantly, bilateral and multilateral diplomacies have been deployed to conjure a streak of auspicious opportunities to forge solidarity and cooperation among the comity of African States through the instrumentality of treaties on defence, peace, security, and economic integration within the framework of the African Union and its Regional Economic Communities. Finally, the book carries out an in-depth analysis of the security and defence architecture of a cross-section of African States since colonial times, providing at a glance an overview of their distinctive statuses. These include South Africa, Libya, Rwanda, Somalia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.