Blinken looks to bolster West African security partnerships after setbacks
Lagos, Nigeria – This week during his visit to the Ivorian capital Abidjan, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken pledged $45m to boost coastal West African security, extending funding of an ongoing program in the region to $300m.
Blinken, who also praised counterinsurgency measures by the Ivorian military in warding off armed groups despite being wedged between Mali and Burkina Faso, hotspots for violence in the Sahel, then jetted off to Abuja.
There, he met Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president and chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as part of a four-nation tour that also includes Angola and Cape Verde.
Simultaneously, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations, is also on a separate tour: After attending the inauguration of Liberia’s new president Joseph Boakai, she is also visiting Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone.
The flurry of diplomatic trips is officially billed as a show of support to democracies in the region. But analysts say the visits are fundamentally attempts by the US to bolster or build new security partnerships in a region witnessing waning Western influence in recent months.
Why West Africa?
Save for Angola, all the countries on both tours are in West Africa, which has witnessed a spate of recent military takeovers and violence by multiple armed groups.
According to the latest Ibrahim Index of African Governance, a biennial study on democracy in Africa, governance in the last decade (2012-2021) is at risk as progress “has flatlined since 2019”.
With worsening economic conditions coupled with alarming insecurity as armed groups spread across the region, militaries in the Sahel countries have taken to toppling democratically elected governments. With six successful coups in the region since 2020, almost half of the 16 countries in West Africa are under military control.
These new governments have taken to fresh partners like Russia, which through mercenary forces like the Wagner Group, is expanding its footprint in West Africa, offering the region’s rulers alternative strategic options to the US, France and other traditionally influential European nations.
Experts say the trips by US officials to eight functioning democracies are borne of a need to reassure Washington’s remaining allies in the region of its cooperation, even as their neighbours shop for new partners outside the usual Western sphere of influence.
The visits are also happening in the shadows of Chinese influence in the region, which is visible in trade agreements and infrastructural projects with countries within it.
“The geopolitical context shows the importance and relevance of US-Africa relations and the importance of sustaining those relationships,” Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa program at Wilson Centre, an American think tank, said.
Blinken’s visit to the region also comes months after the US-backed ECOWAS stance against the July 30 coup in Niger.
A question of intentions
Within the region, there is skepticism about the visits.
When US President Joe Biden hosted African leaders at the US-Africa Leaders Summit in 2022, he said he would visit the continent in 2023.
But the visit never came, and criticism of what some consider a flippant engagement with the continent has continued.
Blinken has visited sub-Saharan Africa four times since Biden’s administration came to power, but experts believe it cannot erase the disappointment of Biden’s unfulfilled promise to African leaders.
US officials, however, deny this.
