Africa's politics of instability

This is evidenced by continued terrorist activities across the continent especially in the Sahel region. The Sahel region, which includes countries such as Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Cameroon, Nigeria, Mali, Niger, Chad, Ethiopia and Somalia has experienced violent extremism that has claimed thousands of innocent lives, internally and externally displaced millions and caused destruction of infrastructure worth hundreds of millions in US dollars.

In fact, the Sahel region has made Africa to be the only continent on earth which boasts of a “belt of instability” that spans from the Atlantic coast (Mauritania) to the Indian Ocean (Somalia). The region is replete with many ungoverned spaces, poverty, youth unemployment, corruption, poor governance and a host of other local grievances that make conflict to be inevitable. Terrorist groups linked to ISIS and Al Qaeda manipulate these anomalies to radicalise and recruit many youths to their ranks and go on to cause untold suffering to local populations.