Abstract: Insurgent activities carried out by terrorist organisations in West Africa continue to escalate, especially in Mali and Nigeria. This has prompted many international actors – including the European Union (EU) –to consider urgent measures towards the subregion. Significant space exists in the knowledge and analysis of the evolving situation, both on the part of international actors and the sub-regional governments themselves. This represents a key short-term challenge which must be addressed. However, the role played by these international actors towards the management of crises caused by insurgent movements has rather been selective and uncoordinated and this could account for ephemeral successes recorded so far in dealing with the insurgency question. To examine the role of international actors in the crises in West Africa, this study beamed its searchlight on the intervention of France in their erstwhile colony, Mali. To carry out a detailed analysis, the Marxian political economy approach was adopted. Generally, the historical method of inquiry was also deployed in the study. During the course of the study, we found out that while Mali promptly appealed to the international community for assistance, other states in the sub-region like Nigeria has embarked on self-help which has so far yielded little results. Consequently, it is recommended that to end insurgency problem in West Africa, governments and the international actors should go after the financiers rather than the combatants. Also, both governments and the international community may have to collaborate to isolate and fight active and core leaders of the insurgency, while offering social and economic measures to pacify the support base (and to compete with social services previously rendered by the insurgent movement).
Keywords: international actors, Insurgent activities, Insurgencies, international community, insurgency.
Title: The Role of the International Actors in the Resolution of Insurgencies in West Africa
Author: Chris Oke
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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