Renowned security expert and retired diplomat, Colonel Festus Aboagye (Rtd), has cautioned that the recent United States airstrikes in Nigeria could signal a dangerous drift towards neocolonial dependency and the erosion of African sovereignty.
In a policy paper dated December 28, 2025, titled Regional Security at the Brink: U.S. Distributed Footprint, Security Partnerships and Sovereignty Trade-Offs in Post-Niger West Africa, Col. Aboagye analysed the Christmas Day 2025 U.S. airstrikes in Sokoto State, describing them as a major shift from advisory support to direct kinetic intervention on Nigerian soil.
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He noted that although the strikes targeted terrorist groups, they revealed a troubling divergence in how Washington and Abuja frame the conflict. While the U.S. portrayed the violence largely through the lens of religious persecution, Nigeria considers it a broader security crisis affecting all citizens, regardless of faith. According to him, this religious framing risks providing extremist groups with a powerful recruitment narrative.
Col. Aboagye further observed that following its withdrawal from Niger, the U.S. has adopted a decentralised military posture across several West African countries, including Ghana, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Chad.
He warned that Africa is increasingly “outsourcing” its security to external powers whose strategies may not align with the continent’s long-term peace and stability. He stressed that the concept of regional security must not be used to undermine African sovereignty under the guise of protecting lives, describing this as a critical challenge for the African Union.
The retired colonel pointed to a growing geopolitical vacuum caused by regional fragmentation, particularly the divide between the African Union and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).
To address the situation, Col. Aboagye proposed five key policy measures for the African Union Peace and Security Council. These include requiring foreign powers to notify the AU of any military strikes within 24 to 72 hours, mandating independent African-led security analysis, regulating foreign drone operations through a continental policy, fast-tracking the African Standby Force with counterterrorism capabilities, and initiating dialogue to re-engage AES member states without political conditions.
He, however, acknowledged significant challenges to these proposals, including decades of underfunding of the African Standby Force and the lack of enforcement mechanisms to compel major powers to comply with AU directives. Despite this, he maintained that the measures remain necessary to prevent coastal states from becoming permanent launch pads for external military operations outside a collective AU strategy.
Col. Aboagye concluded that the Sokoto airstrikes have set an important precedent, raising questions about whether African regional institutions can reclaim control over their security architecture or continue to play a secondary role as external actors shape the region’s security future.
