The US has issued a warning: if Ghana, Togo, and Benin are not careful, their countries would soon be full of insurgents from neighboring Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso is home to insurgent group Ansarul Islam, but in recent times has also seen attacks from Nsurat al-Islam or the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), and the Islamic State Greater Sahel (ISGS) formerly confined to Mali and western Niger. The Burkinabe government is weak and practically powerless in the face of the terrorists who are rapidly taking over more and more provinces in the country.

But Burkina Faso is not the only victim in these senseless killings

In Kenya, the battle is against the Al-Shabab while in Nigeria, it is the Boko Haram and ISWAP (the Islamic State’s West African Province). Neighbouring Cameroon and Chad are also dealing with Boko Haram, but in Uganda and Somalia, it is once again the Al-Shabab. Niger contends with Boko Haram and ISGS while in Tunisia, it is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Katiba Uqba ibn Nafi (KUIN) and Katiba Uqba ibn Nafi (JAK-T) Libya is another country battling with ISIL, while Algeria deals with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) on a smaller scale.

The underlying causes of insurgency in Africa

It is very easy to assume that insurgencies in Africa are as a result of religion since all the countries that suffer from it either have a large portion of their population practising Islam or are core Muslim countries.

But this is very far from the truth.

Almost all the African countries battling insurgencies have certain factors in common and they include the following

Weak government: insurgents can rise up and thrive where the central government is weak and cannot defend the country’s territorial integrity either because it does not have full control of the army or because it does not have a firm hold of the entire country. In the latter case, insurgents can rise to topple the government it does not agree with.

Social and economic inequality: in countries like Nigeria where development is not evenly distributed amongst the regions or states, resentment and discontent start to brew and can erupt into a full-blown insurgency. Even if the people on the lowest rung of the social and economic ladder do not start a war against their government... Click to read full article: https://qwenu.com/2019/03/08/africa-can-end-insurgency-if-she-wants/