On July 27, a group of unknown militants—strongly suspected to be affiliated with jihadi groups—killed five park rangers in northern Benin. This comes after a similar attack in June that killed seven people and marks a record total of 171 attacks carried out in 2023 alone by violent extremist groups in the West African country of nearly 14 million. The figure marks a massive increase compared to the 71 incidents reported in 2022, and it would have been inconceivable when the country experienced its first attack in 2019.
Togo, a country of a little more than 8.5 million people, experienced 14 attacks in 2023, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. These incidents killed a total of 66 people, demonstrating the continuing ability of extremist groups to carry out lethal strikes. Kidnappings by extremist groups in Benin’s north have also surged.
Despite sizable interventions by regional states, the current approach to countering violent extremism in coastal West Africa is falling short. If the approach continues without addressing the root causes of extremism—including the systemic exclusion of marginalized ethnic groups, most prominently the Fulani, from society—the situation will continue to deteriorate.
Benin and Togo’s larger neighbor, Ghana, has undertaken extensive measures to prevent such attacks from being carried out, including seeking greater assistance from international partners. This includes direct assistance, such as a biliteral support package of 20 million euros ($22 million) from the European Union, and joining various conflict prevention initiatives, such as the United States’ Global Fragility Act. But the presence and reach of extremist organizations with links to both al Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to grow across the north of the country, and these groups have recruited hundreds of Ghanaians to fight in regional conflicts and beyond, including as suicide bombers.
The growth of extremism in the three coastal West African countries comes despite extensive efforts to prevent the spillover of extremist groups from the Sahel into these three nations’ northern regions. All three are members of the Accra Initiative—a regional alliance founded in 2017 with the explicit aim of preventing the spread of extremism. The initiative has seen extensive intelligence-sharing, cross-border operations, and plans for the eventual establishment of a 10,000-strong task force based in Ghana.
Beyond regional security cooperation, each country has developed its own strategy to counter violent extremism and invested significant security resources. Ghana has deployed more than 1,000 members of its elite special forces and hundreds of security officials to its northern border region while significantly restructuring the country’s security forces. Togo launched a military operation that surged soldiers and police to the country’s north.
It established an inter-ministerial committee to support coordination and gather intelligence. Benin has deployed more than 3,000 soldiers in several of its own northern districts. In addition, the country increased its defense budget by 35 percent in 2021, and it has received direct assistance from a wide range of international partners, including the European Union and Rwanda. Other international partners—including Benin’s former colonial power, France, and the United States—are also providing capacity-building and direct financial support to the Beninese military.
All of these efforts taken to prevent the spillover of extremist activities occurred alongside heavily securitized state responses aimed at preventing the solidification of extremist groups within their existing borders. In fact, Ghana, Togo, and Benin began implementing internal security measures to prevent these groups from gaining a foothold or when extremist groups had only a minuscule presence in forested areas in the north of their countries.
But instead of preventing the growth of extremist groups, the militarized state response brought about the opposite result. Togo and Benin have seen fatalities increase each year, and Ghana has seen an increase in reported extremist operations within its borders. Even though no attacks have occurred in Ghana, Attacks are occurring just north of the Ghanaian border, in Burkina Faso, with insurgents regularly traversing the border. It is now clear that this approach has not yielded the desired outcome.
One obstacle to a successful counterterrorism policy is that the governments of the three countries see the emergence of extremism as an import from abroad, and therefore one to be addressed through increased border security and similar measures. Their policies primarily frame the issue as an external threat, blaming extremism on Sahel states, oftentimes saying so alongside xenophobic rhetoric targeting already marginalized Fulani populations, and local media has largely been doing the same.
Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo stated in a directive released in late 2019 that “we shall deny terrorists the opportunity to cross our borders,” and Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé said during a New Year’s Eve address in December 2023 that “we will overcome the forces of evil. These forces will be defeated at the gates of Togo.” More recently, Beninese President Patrice Talon has asked for regional support on “border security.”
While it is undeniable that the expansion of extremist groups such as the Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Sahel is a direct result of instability in the broader region, it is undeniable that the threat is now coming from within Ghana, Togo, and Benin. That’s because rural communities across coastal West Africa are uniquely vulnerable to the expansion of such groups.
Although the political dynamics differ greatly in these three countries, the security threat developing in their northern regions is similar. Ghana has been a strong multiparty democracy since 1992, Togo has largely been a partly dynastic dictatorship since 1967, recently changing its constitution to abolish direct elections, and Benin has rapidly become more authoritarian following the election of Talon in 2016. However, in each country, the majority of the population and most of the wealth are concentrated in the coastal south; in all three countries, the northern region lags far behind in all development indicators.
Although each nation has different ethnic groups, their respective minorities—including predominantly Muslim and other Indigenous groups—inhabit their northern regions. In Ghana, this segment of the population primarily consists of the Mole-Dagbon, Hausa, and Mande ethnic groups, whereas in Benin and Togo these regions are inhabited by groups such as the Hausa, Tem, and the semi-nomadic Fulani.
While the particularities of each of these groups are different, they share several characteristics that lead to marginalization, including underrepresentation in government, difficulties obtaining state-issued documents, being perceived as “not Indigenous” because of their ancestry, and involvement in conflicts with other populations over land and resources.
This separation and marginalization manifests itself in different ways, including the fact that these communities often have stronger links with their ethnic kin in neighboring countries than they do with compatriots in the south of their own countries, often due to familial and ethnic ties, which leads to strong cross border ties with neighboring countries.
The economy in these northern regions is overwhelmingly focused on means outside of the formal economy, with extensive cross border trade with neighboring countries, including illicitly mined minerals, produce sales, seasonal pastoralism, and gunsmithing. This largely mirrors trade ties and routes that have existed for centuries prior to the introduction of colonial borders that created the modern-day borders of costal west Africa.
Consequently, the northern regions of all three countries are somewhat sociologically and economically separated from the south, and therefore disconnected from established political power and wealth.
Many citizens in Ghana, Togo, and Benin often perceive these groups as foreign and refer to them as foreigners despite the fact that their families have often been in these countries for centuries. Neighborhoods across Ghana inhabited by individuals from the country’s north are referred to as “zongos” which has various direct translations that include “strangers quarters” and “temporary settlement,” implying that the inhabitants are from elsewhere despite having been established in the area for generations.
These exclusionary dynamics have made groups across the north of these countries vulnerable to recruitment by extremists. This is recognized by the extremist groups, which have played upon local grievances in their recruitment and operations.
In Ghana, groups affiliated with JNIM and the Islamic State have established themselves as key nodes within the illicit gold trade—a major economic activity in the country’s north and an area of contention with the government in Accra. In Togo, they have played upon community fissures caused by burdensome restrictions on livestock movement to recruit. Similarly, in Benin, they’ve leveraged localized disputes between farmers and pastoralists to establish a foothold.
All three governments have responded to the emergence of extremism with a security-heavy approach while ignoring the underlying political, economic, and social challenges of life in these northern regions. In addition to deploying military forces to the country’s north, the Ghanaian authorities have deported purported Burkinabe citizens who lack legal status in Ghana on the grounds that they might be involved in extremist activities, despite some of those expelled being refugees fleeing that very violence. It is believed by local rulers that undocumented Ghanaians may have been caught up in the operations. Military operations have also killed civilians, including traditional leaders.
Ghana has also introduced the Ghana Card biometric identification system, which requires all citizens to provide multiple documents proving their birth and that of their parents. While this is not the first national identity requirement to be introduced in Ghana’s history, it is the first time that such identification cards are mandated for tasks such as obtaining a SIM card (which are necessary to access cellular networks) and accessing state services. The requirement is already impacting communities from the north, whose members have found it difficult to provide the requisite documents to obtain the cards, therefore impeding access to state services and further isolating these communities from mainstream Ghanaian society.
While the equitable distribution of these identification cards has the potential to enfranchise those currently excluded from society, the failure to do so—or the politicization of the process—will only exacerbate the marginalization that has led to successful recruitment by extremist organizations.
Similarly, Togo and Benin have alienated their northern populations by restricting seasonal pastoralism, with Benin seeking to confine pastoralists to designated zones. These restrictions have brought such communities into greater conflict with farming communities, led to clashes with security forces, and pushed pastoralists further outside of the formalized economy. Doing so without adequate consultations or agreement from pastoralists only exacerbates the divisions between these populations and the state, which could render some segments of that population vulnerable to recruitment.
Togo declared a state of emergency in its northernmost region, Savanes, in 2022 and has extended it multiple times; it is now not set to expire until March 2025. This declaration gives security forces virtually unrestricted authority to conduct military operations and detain civilians, and human rights group Amnesty International has reported that it has been used to arbitrarily detain people on an ethnic basis. The state of emergency also gives authorities powers to prohibit movement and ban public assembly, which is notable, as Savanes was the site of protests concerning regional marginalization in 2021, which were brutally crushed.
Ironically, this has prevented further citizen advocacy for government improvements to the conditions that have made Savanes fertile ground for extremist recruitment, pushing the population further away from the state. In Benin, access to several districts in the north is limited. The country has also closed access to two national parks in the region due to security threats and outsourced their management, destroying previous economic lifelines for surrounding communities. This has led to destitution as well as reports of an increase in trafficking and recruitment by extremist groups.
The current responses of these three governments to the rise of extremism fail to address the problem and, in some ways, exacerbate it. The rise of extremist groups in coastal West Africa has not occurred in a vacuum. While prospects for ending the raging conflicts in the Sahel are limited, the neighboring coastal countries of Ghana, Benin, and Togo can work to reduce threats of extremism within their own borders.
Unless the militarized approach is replaced with one with an emphasis on mitigating the social exclusion that has rendered communities vulnerable to violent extremist recruitment, the security situation will continue to deteriorate.
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