Africa is awash with several ethnic groups. According to Study.com, the continent is home to some 3,000 ethnic groups who speak more than 2,100 separate languages. This demonstrates how diverse Africa is culturally. Sometimes, this diversity has been a blessing, and other times, it has been ominous. Indeed, some of the ethnic groups are not bound to just one country. They transcend borders. This trans-nationality of ethnicity in Africa can be a common thread for good or evil. Language is a major cultural determinant of ethnicity, thus, a common language to a large extent defines a people’s beliefs, ethno-history, religion, customs, traditions, mindset, worldview and self-identity. Most Africans see themselves first as belonging to a tribe before their nationality. Therefore, tribal loyalty and attachment are far stronger than one’s national identity. Such trans-national and trans-border tribal strands could be a conduit for spreading good or evil. This article examines how a factor such as common trans-national ethnicity, coupled with porous borders and mis/disinformation, could fester security contagion within any region of the continent.
At a recent high-level international conference organised by the Centre for Intelligence and Security Analysis (CISA Ghana), in Accra, on Thursday, 7 November and Friday, 8 November 2024 at the Lancaster Hotel, on the theme, ‘‘New Paradigms for Ensuring Peace and Security in Africa – The need for closer collaboration with non-governmental security and intelligence organisations,’ security experts who discussed the threat that security contagion poses to Africa’s unity, stability and peace, noted in their report: “Historically, insecurity has often been framed as an isolated problem, contained within the borders of the affected state.”
However, as the conference underscored, “the interconnectedness of states, especially in West Africa, has meant that a localised security issue quickly escalates into a broader regional concern.”
For example, the report cited: “There are similar tribes across the continent especially along border towns. Africans are united tribally and kinsmen provide shelter and support for insurgent groups in other countries serving as breeding grounds for insurgency.”
The report also highlighted that “weak and porous borders, along with historical grievances—particularly along ethnic, religious, and resource lines—are the main factors that fuel transnational insecurity. For instance, disputes between farmers and herders, particularly over land and water resources, have become a significant driver of conflict and insurgency in the region. These issues, if not addressed, contribute to the spread of violence across borders.
Trans-National Ethnicity/Languages
Saylor.org, in an article titled ‘Ethnic groups in Africa’ , identifies some trans-national languages and their corresponding population, as of 2011, as follows:
• Hausa in Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Chad, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Sudan (ca. 30 million)
• Yoruba in Nigeria and Benin (ca. 30 million)
• Oromo in Ethiopia and Kenya (ca. 30 million)
• Igbo in Nigeria and Cameroon (ca. 30 million)
• Akan in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire (ca. 20 million)
• Amhara in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti (ca. 20 million)
• Somali in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya (ca. 15-17 million)
• Ijaw in Nigeria (ca. 14 million)
• Kongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and the Republic of the Congo (ca. 10 million)
• Fula in Guinea, Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Mali, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Benin, Niger, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Chad, Sudan, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire (ca. 10 million)
• Shona in Zimbabwe and Mozambique (ca. 10 million)
• Zulu in South Africa (ca. 10 million)
For Zulu, Worldmapper.org, adds that although it is predominantly spoken by the Zulu of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces in the east of South Africa, there are also speakers in at least six other territories, including Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, Mozambique and the United Kingdom.
Ewe, a language spoken by roughly 11% of the Ghanaian population, is also spoken by people in the southern half of Togo, and a small part of south-west Benin.
And then there is the Fulani, who are also known as Fula, Fulbe, or Peuhl dotted across the continent, especially in the Sahel.
According to an article titled, ‘Fulani People and Jihadism in Sahel and West African countries,’ authored by ‘Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique,’ the Fulani are approximately 16,800,000 in Nigeria (190 million inhabitants), 4,900,000 in Guinea-Conakry (13 million inhabitants), 3,500,000 in Senegal (16 million inhabitants), 3 million in Mali (18.5 million inhabitants), 2,900,000 in Cameroon (24 million inhabitants), 1,600,000 in Niger (21 million inhabitants), 1,260,000 in Mauritania (4.2 million inhabitants), 1,200,000 in Burkina Faso (19 million inhabitants), 580,000 in Chad (15 million inhabitants), 320,000 in The Gambia (2 million inhabitants), 320,000 in Guinea-Bissau (1.9 million inhabitants), 310,000 in Sierra Leone (6.2 million inhabitants), 250,000 in the Central African Republic (5.4 million inhabitants), 4,600 in Ghana (28 million inhabitants) and 1,800 in Côte d’Ivoire (23.5 million inhabitants). A Fulani community has also been formed in Sudan on the pilgrimage route to Mecca.
The Foundation computed that in terms of percentage of the population, the Fulani represent about 38% of the population in Guinea-Conakry, 30% in Mauritania, just under 17% in Guinea-Bissau, 16% in Mali and Gambia, 12% in Cameroon, 22% in Senegal, just under 9% in Nigeria, 7.6% in Niger, 6.3% in Burkina Faso, 5% in Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic, just under 4% in Chad and very small percentages in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
So the Fulani are roaming the savannas and deserts of Guinea, Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Mali, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Benin, Niger, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Chad, Sudan, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire. The Fulani, mostly nomadic herders, are the most prone to recruitment by terrorist groups who exploit their frustrations and perceived marginalisation and stigmatisation. Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique notes, for example, that “the continuous expansion of agricultural land, necessitated by very rapid population growth, is gradually limiting grazing and transhumance areas, while the major droughts of the 1970s and 1980s prompted livestock farmers to migrate southwards to areas where sedentary people were not used to competition from nomads. In addition, the priority given by development policies to intensive livestock farming tends to marginalise nomads.”
It pointed out: “Left out of development policies, frequently feeling discriminated against by the authorities, transhumance herders often feel they are living in a hostile environment and mobilise to defend their interests. In addition, terrorist groups and militias fighting in West and Central Africa are trying to use their frustrations to recruit them.”
Analysis
Resource constraints such as the scarcity of grazing grounds for the large herds of cattle belonging to the Fulani, coupled with the adversities of climate change, cultural differences between the herders and their host communities, and the nomads’ vulnerability to recruitment by extremist and jihadist groups, is a clear recipe for security contagion.
For instance, if the host communities of any of these countries enter into any conflict with the herders, they not only have the local nomads to deal with but also the entire Fulani clan stretching across the Sahel and beyond as well as the terrorist and extremists groups they belong to. If the aggressors also happen to belong to a trans-border ethnic group, then the situation could also take a tribal dimension and escalate into a trans-national ethnic conflict nestled within a trans-border regional security threat.
In such a convoluted and volatile security situation, when misinformation and disinformation get into the mix (fake news, AI deepfakes, twisted narratives, half-truths, doctored pictures, videos, and audio-visuals) then matters get even way out of hand.
This is why the CISA conference issued the following communiqué on security contagion, resource management and mis/disinformation:
CISA International High-Level Security Conference on New Paradigms for Ensuring Peace and Security in Africa, Accra 2024.
Communiqué
8th November 2024
Lancaster Hotel, Accra
Subject: Advancing New Paradigms for Peace and Security in Africa
To All Delegates, Stakeholders, and Partners,
The Centre for Intelligence and Security Analysis Ghana, in the spirit of cooperation and mutual commitment, convened the Conference on New Paradigms for Ensuring Peace and Security in Africa. This conference brought together key security experts from the region to foster a robust dialogue on innovative strategies to address the unique challenges facing the African continent.
Based on our shared values and belief that our peoples, fortunes and challenges are inextricably linked, we have engaged in vigorous discussions and analysis over a two-day period and now share this communique. Our recommendations are borne out of the need for collective action in support of our various governments to tackle issues that have traditionally undermined development and deepened insecurity, misinformation and disinformation.
Key Outcomes and Recommendations:
- Security Contagion
The Conference recognized that issues of security and peace are fundamental to our collective development as a region. Being aware of the ability of such incidents to become transboundary in nature, the conference recommends the following;
- Joint security initiatives enforcing regional capacity through cooperation on joint military patrols along borders to prevent the movement of insurgents and illicit trade is highly recommended. This can be engendered through MoUs and development of early warning systems/mechanisms.
- Effective intelligence exchange between various national agencies is highly recommended.
- Combating arms trafficking and terrorism financing require coordinated action plans to curb the flow of arms and financing of insurgent groups, with particular attention to border regions.
- Involving local communities (particularly intelligence NGOs) is fundamental to finding sustainable and localized solutions to security problems.
- Sustainable resource management: Work on initiatives for sustainable resource management along porous borders addressing competition over land, water, and other critical resources.
- Cultural exchanges, intelligence sharing and promotion of preventive diplomacy should be the bedrock for engendering security contagion across the region.
- Mis/Disinformation.
Mis/disinformation has become the new paradigm in stoking security challenges in nations. The conference discussed this matter as an issue requiring urgent action in the light of its impacts. The following recommendations were made;
- Governments, through their Media Commissions must work hand in hand with traditional media houses to ensure credible information for the consuming public. Additionally, fact-checking of information on various social media platforms must be encouraged.
- Furthermore, African governments must collaborate with key social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, X, and YouTube, among others, to collaboratively control and fight against the spread of fake news, particularly during elections.
- Intelligence and cybersecurity agencies in Africa must create social media content and algorithms on very topical issues that gain traction on social media, as part of countering mis/disinformation.
- Capacity-building and equipping security and intelligence agencies with the right tools to enable tracking, detecting and countering mis/disinformation will promptly enhance the fight against this menace.
- The security and intelligence agencies must put in place charters that impose sanctions on their personnel who misuse social media for mis/disinformation purposes.
- Africa must develop a home-grown strategy to counter fake news and mis/disinformation by inventing its own digital solutions instead of relying on Western technologies that can be compromised by the manufacturers.
- A legal framework must be drawn to help deal with the perpetrators of mis/disinformation and the Judiciary must expeditiously prosecute such cases.
- Traditional and religious leaders such as chiefs, Imams, pastors, priests as well as key opinion leaders must be called upon to join the fight against mis/disinformation since they are revered in African communities.
- Government agencies must have official social media accounts through which they issue official statements. Such platforms can serve as verification sources for the public and, thus, help in fighting mis/disinformation
- Resource Management
Access to resources and the effective utilisation of same can be beneficial to any nation or region. The challenge, however, has centred around lack of access, inequitable distribution and misapplication which often lead to conflicts, or inadequate resources to engender security. The conference considered these critical issues and recommends the following;
- Key drivers, such as economic pressures, and governance challenges, can lead to over-exploitation of resources, threatening both environmental health and social stability. To this end, local participation and transparency are encouraged in resource management and utilisation.
- Effective resource management is challenged by issues such as poverty, climate change, population growth and urbanisation, as well as the rapid increase in demand for food, water, land and energy. Governments need to plan ahead in view of these issues to ensure effective distribution of resources.
- Achieving sustainable growth requires reconciling the demands of economic progress with the imperatives of preserving natural environments.
- Sensitisation and encouraging grassroots participation in resource management in decision-making is a critical imperative.
- Enforcing strict regulations to manage the mining and use of resources, especially natural minerals and holding people accountable for duties assigned them in managing resources at all levels must be upheld.
Call to Action:
We call upon all stakeholders—governments, civil society, the private sector, and international partners—to take these recommendations forward. A collective commitment to implementing new paradigms is essential to foster peace and security across Africa.
Conclusion:
As we conclude this conference, we express our gratitude to all participants for their invaluable contributions. It is our collective response to the challenges of today that would secure the future that Africans desire and truly deserve. The key outcomes and partnerships developed over the two days, mark a qualitative leap towards securing the peace for all and reigniting the filial ties that exist between us. We are one family. Let us work together to create a future where peace prevails and all Africans can thrive.
For further inquiries or to engage in ongoing discussions, please contact:
inusah@cisaghana.com; info@cisaghana.com; www.cisaghana.com Tel: +233 (0) 200068250 or +233 (0) 302518951
Ambassador Rasheed Seidu Inusah
Chief Executive Officer, CISA Ghana.
