Joint US-Nigeria airstrikes target ISWAP: Structural drivers of insurgency in the Sahel remain unaddressed
Original framing: “Nigeria-US strikes kill three senior ISWAP leaders” — Africa News
The current insurgency mirrors colonial-era ‘pacification’ campaigns, where European powers labeled resistance as ‘banditry’ to justify occupation. The 1960s post-independence Nigerian state inherited French/British border policies that fragmented ethnic groups, creating grievances exploited by Boko Haram’s predecessors. AFRICOM’s operations echo Cold War proxy wars, where local conflicts were instrumentalized for geopolitical control.
The Nigeria-US strikes exemplify a colonial-era security paradigm where militarized ‘solutions’ deepen the crises they claim to address.
Indigenous systems like *adal* and Sufi networks offer proven alternatives to AFRICOM’s kinetic approach, yet are sidelined by a narrative that frames insurgency as a ‘terrorist’ pathology rather than a symptom of state collapse and climate apartheid. Historical parallels—from French colonial ‘pacification’ to US drone programs in Yemen—reveal a pattern of outsiders exacerbating the very problems they seek to solve. The trickster’s lens exposes the absurdity of labeling ISWAP ‘foreign’ when its roots lie in Nigerian elite corruption and French uranium extraction, while marginalized voices (pastoralists, IDP women, Chibok families) articulate a future where peace requires reparations, not raids. True systemic change demands dismantling the securitization industry and investing in climate-resilient governance led by those most affected.