ADF

ADF STAFF Nvou Michael had 15 handmade rifles and 400 rounds of AK-47 ammunition when police intercepted her on an expressway in Kaduna State in 2022. Nigeria Police Force public relations officer Olumuyiwa Adejobi elicited Michael’s confession during a media briefing in Abuja: She had been selling AK-47s for 15,000 naira (about $20) each to various bandit groups that have plagued Nigeria’s North West region for more than a decade. “What a man can do, a woman can do even better,” Adejobi said. “The suspect specializes in smuggling arms and ammunition to various states, such as Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and…

ADF STAFF A woman who lives in Moura, a town in central Mali’s restive Mopti region, recalled the horrors inflicted on her when Malian soldiers and Russian Wagner Group mercenaries launched a five-day assault in March 2022. After days of slaughtering men, the Malian troops and Wagner fighters turned their attention to Moura’s women. The woman said soldiers searched her house for men but found none. They returned the next evening and, she said, a white man with tattoos raped her. “A fter that, I was injured in my genital area. When I tried to resist, the other soldier came…

ADF STAFF There are signs of progress in the fight against the Islamic State group (IS) and other terrorist groups in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province. But a spate of recent attacks show that the insurgents are far from defeated and are executing more sophisticated strikes. A remote-controlled improvised explosive device (IED) badly damaged a Mozambican Defense Armed Forces (FADM) armored vehicle in Quiterajo in July. The explosion triggered a gunfight during which at least one FADM Soldier was killed, according to a report by Cabo Ligado, which is published by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Insurgents have…

ADF STAFF Since entering the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2018, Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries have ruthlessly exploited the country’s natural resources, most recently turning to logging to fund the organization and to fuel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. In 2021, CAR authorities granted a 30-year logging concession to Bois Rouge, a company affiliated with Wagner, to harvest logs from a tract covering nearly 186,000 hectares — an area more than twice the size of the Mbaéré-Bodingué National Park just across the Mbaéré River. If Wagner exploits just one-third of its land, the mercenary group could reap nearly…

ADF STAFF The Baka people of Cameroon have thrived amid the lush rainforests for thousands of years, but recently they have seen their lives upended by expanding Chinese rubber plantations. “When they destroyed the forest, they were actually destroying our homes,” Baka village elder Moise Ndjelee told South Africa’s Daily Maverick. Ndjelee and about 100 other Baka were evicted from their homes to make way for the 450-square-kilometer Sudcam rubber plantation. Today, the hunter-gatherers live in poverty and crowded conditions in the Bantu village of Nyabibéte. Sudcam is the common name for Cameroonian-owned Sud Cameroun Hévéa, which is a subsidiary…

ADF STAFF Terrorists of the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) kidnapped Boubacar Moussa in Niger in 2019 and forced him to fight for them in Mali. Moussa was with JNIM when Mali experienced the first of its two recent coups in 2020. At the time, he said, many radical extremists viewed the government overthrow as an opportunity. He now fears that the recent coup in Niger will boost extremist recruitment, possibly escalate violence and further erode stability in the volatile Sahel region. “Jihadis are very supportive of this coup that happened in Niger,” Moussa told The Associated Press (AP). The…

ADF STAFF As the world tries to understand what led to the coup in Niger, one factor continues to face scrutiny: ethnicity. Throughout the continent’s history, coups have been closely linked to ethnic grievances. This is particularly true when the military is packed with one ethnic group and does not reflect the population it serves. What emerges is a belief that access to power and career advancement is tied to ethnicity. “We can link a large number of coups to ethnicity,” Dr. Olayinka Ajala, lecturer in politics and international relations at Leeds Beckett University, told ADF. “Ethnicity has always been…

ADF STAFF In little more than two years, Niger has exemplified the power of presidential security forces — and what can happen when that power is unchecked. In March 2021, Niger’s presidential guard quelled an attempted coup by elements of the military two days before the inauguration of President-elect Mohamed Bazoum. In July 2023, the presidential guard led a coup that deposed Bazoum. The mutiny within the president’s innermost circle was led by the same man who protected the presidential residence in 2021 — Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani, head of the presidential guard since 2011. On July 26, 2023, Tchiani detained…

ADF STAFF There was no surprise when military junta leaders in Niger reached out to Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group for help just days after overthrowing a democratically elected government and suspending the country’s constitution. Experts say Russia’s presence in Africa is focused on promoting autocracy and instability. Niger is simply the latest example. “War is a business, and it’s a business Russia has managed to do very well in,” said Marisa Lourenço, a South Africa-based independent political and economic risk analyst, during an August 14 panel discussion called The Resistance Bureau. “This is effectively what drives Russia. Africa keeps it…

ADF STAFF As Niger’s military junta has held the deposed president in isolation, the country has become increasingly isolated by the international community — one of the many consequences of unconstitutionally seizing power. Nigerien President Mohamad Bazoum has said he is being held “hostage” and “deprived of all human contact” with no electricity and only dry rice and pasta to eat. “I am just one of hundreds of citizens who have been arbitrarily and illegally imprisoned,” he wrote in an opinion piece published by The Washington Post on August 3. “This coup … has no justification whatsoever. “If it succeeds,…