Security conference deliberates on perils of fragmented Africa

A richly endowed continent with as much population as China’s and India’s, but fragmented into 54 independent states, whose collective voice and feel are marginal in the evolving global order.

This is the sorry state of Africa, now reduced into a spectator as the hitherto Western hegemony crumbles, international norms and security collapse, geo-economic fragmentation and protectionism surges, technological competition rises and unstable multipolar system puts the world on the edge.

The new uncertainties brought about by the changes add to the swell of Africa’s pre-existing conditions: massive energy deficit, chronic food shortage, leadership and health crisis, insecurity, unemployment, climate vulnerability, and poor infrastructure.

In the last month, the world has stared at an energy crisis of unprecedented proportions following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil transit route. Africa sat on the edge, fidgety, waiting for the dark cloud to pass.

Yet Africa boasts of an incredibly massive energy potential of enormous oil and natural gas reserves, but also the highest solar potential globally, significant untapped hydropower, vast geothermal, wind and green hydrogen potential.

A rude awakening of sorts, the war in the Middle East has jolted key African institutions to begin to re-imagine the security and future of the continent, given the cutthroat competition shaping up for world resources and values.

“If you look at the pattern in the last few years, the crisis is the new normal. Who would have imagined a war in the middle of Europe in the 21st century, who?” Donald Kaberuka, the 7th elected President of the African Development Bank, asked participants at the recently concluded Mashariki Cooperation Conference.

100 delegations

The Conference is a Kenyan-led dialogue initiative to remodel Africa’s approach to security, emphasising intelligence-led strategies for peace and economic growth. Over 100 delegations drawn from across the continent and beyond, including 37 director generals of African intelligence units, attended.

According to Kaberuka, the most important thing for the continent right now is to build critical buffers- political, social and economic resilience- to absorb and survive the shocks.

Africa must then re-establish its lost agency, look more inwards, grow its own financial autonomy, fund its own initiatives, and own development. It must also, as a matter of urgency, revisit the stalled African Union reforms.

“Imagine the situation obtaining now with each of our 54 countries responding on their own, at their own pace, while India, with just as much population as ours, responds in a single voice?” Kaberuka wondered.

The journey to reform the AU began in 2016 under the chairmanship of Rwanda President Paul Kagame. It aimed to make the Union more self-reliant, accountable and efficient. The current chair of the reforms drive is President William Ruto. 

At the Mashariki Conference, Ruto faced the intelligence chiefs in the eye and told them he was running into resistance. He told them that a fit-for-purpose AU is a priority if Africa is to survive the geopolitical changes.

“I know many of you speak to African leaders, presidents in some very personal way, assist us to unlock the potential of our continent,” he pleaded with them.

At the cusp of 90 and ageing gracefully, former Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo is a man oozing in raw wisdom. From the head of a military junta to the head of state, and from a political prisoner to a democratically elected president, and much later a statesman and peacemaker, he has seen it all.

Unlike many, he has nothing to hold back. He told the conference that Africa, once again, is on the dinner table of Western states and their emerging Asian mates:

“We are witnessing a new scramble for Africa. China’s Belt and Road Initiative has deepened infrastructure links across Africa while also deepening dependency in a number of our member states.

Quoting research from Johns Hopkins University, he told the delegations that 49 out of the 54 African states had signed up to the initiative, turning China into Africa’s largest bilateral creditor.

On the other hand, Russia has expanded its presence in the continent through the Wagner Group and its successors in Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya and Sudan. Russia has also recruited thousands of Africans to fight in Ukraine, including Kenyans, whose return, according to South Africa’s Deputy Director General of the State Security Agency Joyce Mashele, should worry everyone.

“Without proper rehabilitation, these fighters will easily become easy targets for recruitment,” she warned. NIS estimates that close to 1,000 Kenyans are fighting in Russia, many having been tricked by trafficking syndicates into the war.

According to Obasanjo, in Libya since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, a bewildering array of external states, including the UAE, Turkey, Egypt, Russia and several European governments, have poured weapons and fighters into a conflict they have simultaneously claimed to want to resolve.

The hypocrisy, he told the gathering of African security chiefs, is breathtaking.

“In any rational calculus, Africa should be a power of the first rank in the emerging multipolar world. But we will not achieve that position by allowing ourselves to become a theatre of great power competition, as we were during the Cold War and as we are increasingly at risk of becoming again,” he warned.

Non-African participants at the conference, however, shone the spotlight on several factors inhibiting Africa’s ability to play the global game. Some openly said that out there, people see Africa as not quite connected to the rest of the world.

Brendan Gough, the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, Valar, said there is a perception of a serious government-private sector divide where investors seek predictability as governments push for sovereignty. In the end, both work at cross purposes, inhibiting growth.

The under-appreciation of communities and the reliance on risk assessments done far away from African realities further alienates them. Gough gave examples of brilliant innovations taking place in Rwanda and Kenya, including at the National Intelligence and Research University, saying they were least appreciated out there.

“To what extent do risk assessments determined far away affect decisions on Africa?”

According to Noordin Haji, Kenya’s spy chief and convenor of the Mashariki Conference, the new global order has blurred the lines between external and internal threats for a country’s security.

Transnational networks, digital connectivity and economic interdependence have opened up countries to new vulnerabilities hitherto unimagined. The accompanying volatility is in turn, constraining responses and interventions.

But Haji is more worried about another feature of these changes, which also translates into an opportunity, hence the Mashariki initiative: “The current global landscape is exposing Africa’s reliance on external markets, the speed at which global shocks translate into domestic pressures, and the continent’s limited preparedness to absorb and respond to such disruptions.”

He sees an opportunity if African countries embrace stronger coordination and organisation. Africa, he said, is not only well-positioned to withstand the changes but also to navigate and ultimately benefit from them.

Haji drew clear parallels between reliance on narrow supply and trade sources, rising fuel and goods prices, reduced access to key inputs such as fertilisers, declining export revenues, reduced foreign exchange earnings, mounting debt and popular disaffections.

“In such conditions, the risks of social disaffection increase, particularly as protests become more frequent. This is against an already fragile backdrop, where social media, amplified by artificial intelligence, is being used to exploit divisions, spread disinformation, incite unrest and erode trust in state institutions,” he said.

He told the conference that the African nation’s traditional focus on territorial defence and internal vulnerabilities is no longer sufficient. Countries must now coalesce together to secure critical systems, including energy supply chains, digital infrastructure, and Africa’s other strategic resources.

He also wants the continent to strengthen its resource avenues, diversify supply chains and make use of alternative corridors that are not constrained by major global chokepoints, including the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb.

They must also share intelligence, pool strategic resources, align government, multilateral and private capital towards critical sectors such as fertiliser production, fuel refining, gas and energy infrastructure.

Just like Kaberuka, Haji decried Africa’s fragmentation exhibited by duplication of efforts, underutilization of existing frameworks, and uncoordinated responses.

“Let us be clear; in the emerging global order, competition for strategic resources will intensify. Without effective security and intelligence oversight, these assets risk becoming points of vulnerability rather than drivers of prosperity.

At the conference, technology experts advised African security chiefs to convince their government to cease whining about AI, invest in it, pursue data sovereignty, and develop their own solutions to retain African values.

Unique strengths

Lorna Omondi Ogolla is a celebrated AI & Machine Learning Expert with a chain of degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. An advocate for “Building from Africa for the World,” she has worked abroad with tech conglomerates but is now back in Kenya.

She told the conference that AI had added swell to Africa’s existing pressure points, urging governments to adequately prepare and support the tech ecosystem.

“Innovation is not the issue here. I can create as many Apps as I want in a day, because I have the capability. But where do I go from there? Will they be allowed to run?” she posed.

Like many at the conference, Ogolla recounted the problems of a fragmented continent and its effect on ease of doing business, where investors have to deal with multiple governments with varying regulatory systems when scaling their businesses.

“It’s really hard to do business in Africa. Our markets are fragmented”

She advises African nations to focus on the unique strengths of individual nations or regions, pool support towards their success and enact smart policies supportive of the tech ecosystem.  

She also wants Africa to think of energy- a single hyper-scale data centre can consume as much electricity as 50,000 homes- involve the experts in the process of regulation, and to invest in its own, clean data.

Dr Irene Mwingirwa, a cybersecurity expert, decried the diminishing human connections, erosion of local values and threats of greater inequalities and marginalisation as machines replace humans. Director Generals of Intelligence from Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Liberia, Botswana, Rwanda, Turkiye, Mozambique, Algeria, and Equatorial Guinea addressed the conference on various topics.

Musau, an Advocate of the High Court, is a Senior Project Manager with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.