CONTAINING WEST AFRICAN INSECURITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: THE NIGERIAN QUAGMIRE

Abstract

Since the new millennium, the West African security situation has witnessed different political violence and emerging new threats to the region’s peace and stability far from the post-independence era that was characterizedby five full-scale intrastate wars (Souaré, 2010.)These new threats such as deep-rooted electoral violence, drug cum human trafficking and the most Herculean, of course, violent extremism among several others pose a clog in the wheels of development in sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, the ability to contain if not to drastically reduce the security challenges has become a quagmire for Nigeria, who is being looked up to, to provide the needed leadership in the region (Fawole, 2000). It is so because Nigeria represents approximately 70% of the 15-country ECOWAS GDP and more than half of the ECOWAS region’s population (ITA: 2023). This paper examined Nigeria’s domestic and regional security challenges, thereby, discovered the impeding factors in containing the West African security, as the regional hegemon. The recommendation is that for Nigeria to contain the region effectively, it has to build and prove to possess the enablement to its neighbour-states by succeeding in resolving its internal security problems. Charity begins at home.