The United Nations has sounded the alarm that West Africa and the Sahel are at a dangerous tipping point, where terrorism, political rifts and climate shocks converge to threaten regional stability unless urgent unity of purpose is forged.
Zig Diaries | Defence
Date: Wednesday, 03 September 2025
Time: 14:00 WAT
Location: 📍 Abuja, Nigeria
The warning came from UN Under-Secretary-General Leonardo Santos Simão at the Regional Conference on Combating Emerging Terrorist Groups and Strengthening Sustainable Security, hosted in Abuja by Nigeria’s National Counter Terrorism Centre in collaboration with the ECOWAS Commission.
Simão warned that the security landscape is shifting at an alarming rate, with
five of the ten most terror-impacted countries located in West Africa and the
Sahel. According to the 2025 Global Terrorism Index, the region recorded the
highest fatalities worldwide in 2024, a sharp increase from the year before.
He
noted that extremist groups have become more sophisticated, adopting drones,
encrypted communications and cyber tools, while exploiting community grievances
and ungoverned spaces.
“These
numbers represent stolen futures, fractured communities, and deepening
fragility,” he cautioned, citing the recruitment of 1,364 children, 466 cases
of sexual violence, and over 14,000 schools forced shut in 2024 due to
insecurity.
The UN envoy pointed to incursions into sensitive borderlands such as Tambacounda, straddling Mali, Senegal, Guinea and Mauritania, as well as protected eco-parks of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. He warned that these moves endanger biodiversity and rural livelihoods, worsening social displacement.
Simão
stressed that political tensions between neighbours and the impacts of climate
change are amplifying insecurity by fuelling conflicts over scarce resources,
driving migration, and giving extremist groups new recruitment pools.
Despite
the grim picture, he welcomed progress through ECOWAS’ dialogue with the
Alliance of Sahel States to preserve free movement, the new ECOWAS-AU Joint
Threat Fusion Cell for intelligence-sharing, and the landmark Abuja summit of
37 African Chiefs of Defence Staff.
“All
these are positive developments indeed. However, we all agree that military
action alone will not bring lasting peace,” he said, warning that projected USD
3.2 billion defence spending by the Central Sahel in 2025 risks starving
education, health and climate priorities.
He
urged greater investment in governance, youth empowerment and women’s. participation, while tackling illicit economies that bankroll terrorism
including drug trafficking, illegal mining and arms smuggling. He also welcomed
Abuja’s upgraded Counter Terrorism Centre into a Regional Centre of Excellence,
calling it “an urgent need to complement technical and research institutions,
and to fight terrorism with advanced intellectual tools.”
“No
country can address terrorism alone. We must move decisively beyond rhetoric to
forge a common response anchored in solidarity,” he pressed, urging communities
to see their security forces as protectors and partners.
Delivering
a remark on behalf of the ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and
Security, Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, Dr. Cyriaque Agnekethom unveiled plans
for a regional force and pledged deeper collaboration against extremist groups
destabilising West Africa and the Sahel.
He reiterated that terrorism has become “a major threat to integration, trade, and peace in our region.”
ECOWAS Strategy
ECOWAS outlined two models under consideration for a new regional
counterterrorism force. The first is a 5,000-strong brigade estimated at 2.61
billion dollars annually. The second is a phased 1,650-strong brigade costing
481.5 million dollars in the first year.
Musah
stressed that “fighting terrorism remains a top priority for achieving
collective security and regional stability,” underscoring the balance of
kinetic and non-kinetic approaches.
The
Abuja conference follows an August 29th ministerial session where ECOWAS
defence and finance ministers examined funding modalities to operationalise the
standby force.
Fact Check and Background Context
The Sahel is now ranked as the world’s most terrorised region according to the 2025 Global Terrorism Index.
Burkina Faso has overtaken Pakistan as the most terror-affected country, with Mali, Niger and northern Nigeria also ranking among the deadliest flashpoints.
Over 18,000 deaths from extremist violence were recorded across the Sahel in 2024, accounting for nearly half of all global terrorism casualties.
Nigeria has played a pivotal role in anchoring the regional response, convening the April 2024 African Counter-Terrorism Summit and the August 2025 African Chiefs of Defence Staff Summit.
ECOWAS is under pressure to prove it can operationalise its own counterterrorism force after years of reliance on ad hoc coalitions and external partners.
The Abuja
conference is therefore a test of whether political will can be converted into
measurable action.
TAKE HOME
The UN’s stark warning and ECOWAS’ bold plans converged into one clear message.
Survival and stability across West Africa and the Sahel will depend not on
military might alone but on unity, trust and decisive action reaching from
national capitals to the most fragile communities.
🏷 Tags: Nigeria, ECOWAS, UN, Sahel, Terrorism, Counterterrorism, Abuja Conference, Security, Africa
#ZigDiariesDefence #ECOWAS
#SahelSecurity #Nigeria #AbujaConference #AfricanSolutions #CounterTerrorism
#RegionalSecurity #StopTerror #WestAfricaUnite
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