The Origins of African Alliances - Examining Security Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa Against Threats from Transnational Non-State Actors: The Case of Boko Haram

Abstract

Security cooperation against Boko Haram has lacked substance, this despite the growing lethality of the terrorist group in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Why? This dissertation examines the collective behaviour of Lake Chad Basin Commission – LCBC countries (Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger) and more broadly Sub-Saharan African countries against transnational non-state actors such as Boko Haram (in the case of LCBC countries). By linking the security behaviour exhibited by most Sub-Saharan African countries (like the LCBC countries) to the ramifications of the post-colonial political order, I find that decolonization legacies play a role in threat identification and alliance choices in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, African efforts to cooperate against such threats as Boko Haram have been marred by the lack of trust among the different political regimes and their disparate interests and priorities in connection to the postcolonial political arrangements. This dynamic emerges out of a path-dependent survivalism common to Sub-Saharan Africa; African countries which are unwilling and often unable to cooperate with each other are so because of the exigencies of their histories, mostly evident in the presence of the same political regimes as well as the entertainment of close links with former colonial countries.