Military Cooperation between Nigeria and The Gambia

Military Cooperation between Nigeria and The Gambia: Strategic Factor for Regional Security
1. Geo-strategic importance of The Gambia
Gambia represents a region of geo-strategic importance for Nigeria in the fight against the Boko Haram (Touray, 2015) as well as in maintaining influence in West Africa. Nigerians currently represent the largest population of foreign nationals in Gambia (Punch, 2018) and to keep political peace in the region (Blomfield, 2017). The hesitation of Yahya Jammeh to hand over power to the duly elected Adama Barrow was a signal to the other West African states that Gambian politics might undermine the ECOWAS and create problems for them. Nigeria quickly pledged to send military forces to ensure that the democratically elected Barrow was inaugurated.
The Gambia is viewed as rich in mineral resources and as an important waterway, and Nigeria would like to strengthen trade relations with The Gambia for this reason. As The Standard (2018) points out: “The Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and The Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to facilitate and deepen economic ties in both countries.” This MOU is meant to serve as the ground floor of a relationship that will “encourage, promote and facilitate trade cooperation among the business communities of both countries” (The Standard, 2018).
However, The Gambia is also 90% Islamic, and with the radical Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram currently considered a primary threat among West African states, the possibility of a nest of Islamic terrorism burgeoning in The Gambia is a palpable one that states like Nigeria want to address. That is one reason Nigeria was adamant about seeing Barrow assume his position as Gambia’s rightful leader. In order to face the Islamic threat represented by Boko Haram, Nigeria needs to know that the threat is contained and that a spigot of terrorism is not opened in Gambia, which is supported financially by several Islamic states in the Middle East (Hadebe, 2017), so as to flow over the whole of West Africa.
2. Overview of the Military Cooperation Between Nigeria and The Gambia in Handling Security Challenges
The Nigerian High Commissioner to The Gambia, Esther John Adu, stated that “in support of the Gambia government’s development efforts, the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has continued to post Technical Aid Corps Volunteers (TAC) to The Gambia” (Cham, 2013). Nigeria’s support for The Gambia, according to Adu, “is informed by our conviction and belief in the development of The Gambia and the well-being of its people” (Cham, 2013). By helping to develop Gambia, Nigeria aims to stabilize the whole of West Africa. However, security challenges exist, which is why Nigeria has recently been deeply involved in overseeing The Gambia’s military operations.
In 2017, the armoury of The Gambian Armed Forces was “completely taken over by troops of the Nigerian Army for security reasons” (Kilete, 2017). The heads of ECOWAS used the Army to help stabilize The Gambia following Barrow’s election. The security challenges that remain in The Gambia have to do with ensuring that the state does not attempt a coup to oust the elected Barrow. As Dwyer (2017) notes, the military of The Gambia has had different roles depending on the leader in charge of the state. Dwyer (2017) states that there were “vastly different roles the military played in the state under President Jawara (1965–94) and President Jammeh (1994–2017)” (p. 362). To ensure a smooth transition in governance, therefore, it is necessary that the Nigerian military work with The Gambian state to ensure that no coups are conducted that would potentially upset the ECOWAS. As Jammeh took power in The Gambia following a military coup in 1994, the presence of the Nigerian military in The Gambia today follows the maxim, “an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure”—i.e., it is better to be safe than sorry. With the whole of West Africa tied up via the ECOWAS in The Gambia’s future, Nigerian cooperation, militarily speaking, is viewed as a must among ECOWAS states to ensure The Gambia’s development (Hartmann, 2017).
3. Evaluation of Military Cooperation between Nigeria and Gambia Analyzing the Military, Economic and Political Relations
As Hartmann (2017) points out, military, economic and political relations are intimately united in The Gambia, particularly because of its role in ECOWAS. Since 2016, The Gambia has received even more attention: “Following the disputed December 2016 presidential elections in The Gambia, ECOWAS managed to ‘restore democracy’ in the country by using the threat of force, but without any use of direct physical violence” (Hartmann, 2017, p. 85). The regime operating under Jammeh refused to hand over authority to the newly elected Barrow. Only because the threat of force became real did Barrow finally get to assume control of the state.
Hartmann (2017) describes the success of this tightening of military, economic and political relations between The Gambia and Nigeria (which represented the bulk of the military force aimed at Jammeh) in terms of four conditions:
1) ECOWAS had a clear legal mandate to threaten the use of force in order to protect democracy in one of its member states;
2) there was consensus that ECOWAS forces could have coped with the relatively small Gambian army;
3) the Gambian president could not rely on friends among his regional peers or some powerful ally from outside Africa;
4) and regional leaders such as Nigeria and Senegal made a credible commitment to the regional intervention (Hartmann, 2017, p. 85).
These factors help to explain how military, economy and politics intertwine in the relationship between Gambia and Nigeria. The greater West African peace demanded that Gambia be stabilized—and only Nigeria could provide that stability with any degree of certainty.
It was also crucial to the ECOWAS that a peaceful transition of power be effected in The Gambia. It initially looked like this would be the case when Jammeh congratulated Barrow on winning the election, indicating that he would peacefully step aside and return to his farm. However, when Jammeh stepped up rhetoric about the election being fraudulent and a new being needed, the ECOWAS states began working together to address the issue and ensure that no adverse economic or political outcome impacted them by way of turmoil in Gambia. As Hartmann (2017) notes, ECOWAS chiefs “gathered on 14 January in Abuja to discuss the preparations for the establishment of the ECOWAS Military Intervention in The Gambia (ECOMIG). On 18 January, troops (most from Senegal, with contingents from Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, and Togo) started to move towards the border with The Gambia (which is surrounded by Senegalese territory), and together with Nigerian forces also implemented a naval blockade” (p. 89). The ensuing peaceful handover of the state to Barrow was largely thanks to this swift military action on the parts of the ECOWAS, with Nigeria playing a commanding role in ensuring that The Gambia was completely isolated from any allies that Jammeh might like to call upon to assist him in his illegal usurpation of the office of President.
4. Evaluation of the Implications for Nigeria
Thanks to the continuous presence of the Nigerian military in The Gambia, the region has been somewhat more stabilized. Vanguard (2018) reports that “the NAF was the first to deploy to The Gambia in January 2017 as part of the standby force tasked by ECOWAS Heads of State to enforce the December 1, 2016 election mandate, which restored Adama Barrow as President.” The NAF currently is rotating its forces in a continued effort to provide stability to the state in cooperation with The Gambian leaders. The effect of this continued military support and collaboration between The Gambia and the NAF is that economic peace and prosperity have become more likely to be achieved. This means that one of the major implications for Nigeria is that it and ECOWAS will benefit from the support shown to The Gambia and to Barrow and the democratic process in particularly.
Omosebi (2018) notes that this continued military support has been instrumental in facilitating the strengthening of political and economic ties between the two nations, ties that have resulted in “a Memorandum of Understanding to encourage, promote and facilitate trade cooperation among the business communities of both countries. Nigeria, through the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and The Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) signed the MoU to facilitate and deepen economic ties in both countries.”
The ACCI agreement will be good for The Gambia as well as for Nigeria. The Independent (2018) finds that “under the agreement, it is expected that both countries would coordinate their activities in order to:
· establish and expand a trade network,
· facilitate business opportunities,
· collaborate in logistics matters,
· assist each other in organising or participating in trade fairs, exhibitions, conferences, seminars and other similar activities in particularly in areas like tourism, education, oil and gas, construction, agriculture, and technology sectors.”
By allowing the Gambia and Nigeria to build their relationships over the support of democracy, the region is stabilized for trade, business, logistics, and development. All of this is possible thanks to the bridge of cooperation established between the new Gambian government under Barrow and the Nigerian government.
5. Effects of the Cooperation
The NAF has been hailed as playing a major role in the stabilizing of Gambia: Air Vice Marshal Olatokunbo Adesanya, Director, Public Relations and Information recalled stated that “The NAF deployed 200 men and air assets comprising fighter jets, transport aircraft, light utility helicopters as well as Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. The NAF’s timely intervention served as deterrence to the former President Yahya Jammeh who then relinquished power on 21 January 2017 thus paving way for the restoration of democracy in the country” (Vanguard, 2018). Nigeria has thus been able to develop its own image as a supporter of democracy and the rule of law in West Africa, which enhances its own prestige and reputation on the world stage. At the same time, its cooperation with The Gambia and the ECOWAS shows that it is still willing to play a leading role in the affairs of the region in spite of its reluctance to sign off on the latest trade deal of the ECOWAS. As Hartmann (2017) shows, “Nigeria claimed leadership of the mediation [in Gambia] and participated in the military intervention without any clear material interests in the small country” (p. 94).
Another of the effects of this cooperation is, as Aning (2014) puts it, that the region is now more secure from trafficking: “narcotics infiltration into public and private spaces in Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Mali has been characterised as a troubling situation,” (p. 11) and this cooperation between The Gambia and Nigeria helps to limit the avenues to trafficking and underground sales of banned substances as well as networks of terrorists from rising throughout West Africa.
Iyanda and Osundina (2014) support this argument by showing that “human security provisioning is not an assault of sovereign government but rather is an economic development that propagates human wants and need that build cohesion in the society. It brings into fore and emphasizes, the importance of liberation of individual, rights and the possible implication of neglect of those rights dare consequences” (p. 16). By engaging in a security effort with Gambia, Nigeria better positions itself to support its own people and future.
6. Challenges of the Cooperation
Iyanda and Osundina (2014) state that some of the main challenges of the cooperation between The Gambia and Nigeria stem not so much from the nature of the collaboration itself but rather from the individual economic and social challenges that each country individually faces. For instance, the “unemployment situation in Nigeria and the Gambia tend to have influenced movement and migrations from the two countries,” as Iyanda and Osundina (2014) show: “from the statistics available from the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBOs, 2012), more than 22 percent of the Gambian population is unemployed with larger percentage covering the youth within the population less than 2 million. In an assessment done by World Bank in 2010, nearly 60 percent of the poor in The Gambia are under the age of 20 years” (p. 12). At the same time, Nigeria’s unemployment situation increased over the first decade of the 21st century. Iyanda and Osundina (2014) state that
For instance, in the South –West, between year 2000 and 2003, for Lagos State, there has been steady increase on the level of unemployment from 4.8 percent in 2000 to 25.6 percent in 2003. This dropped in 2004-2008, then increased in 2009-2010, and dropped in 2011-2012. For Ogun State, while there are fluctuations throughout the years under study, there was a sharp increase in 2011 and 2012. For the rest of the zones, the level of unemployment increased, Ogun 22.9; Edo 35.2; Delta 27.2; Benue 14.2; Sokoto 17.9. (p. 12).
As a result of so much unemployment among the two states, there is a problem of human trafficking (Iyanda & Osundina, 2014). Though Nigeria’s economy has been growing in recent years, there is still the problem of solving the issue of poverty among so many people in both Nigeria and Gambia. It is believed that the current cooperation between Gambia and Nigeria “would help lift the people out of poverty” (Independent, 2018). The collaborative exercise taking place in Gambia between the state government there and the Nigerian military forces is actually connected to the issue of poverty in Nigeria: the more secured the region is, the more likely the state is to rise out of poverty (Iyanda & Osundina, 2014).
7. Viable Strategies for Nigeria
Securing the region, starting in Gambia, is the most viable strategy going forward. As Iyanda and Osundina (2014) note, “variations in unemployment rate in Nigeria are explained by variation in human security provisioning proxied by food security, poverty rate and purchasing power parity. This means that empirically, if efforts are intensified towards increasing human security provisioning in Nigeria, youth unemployment problems will reduce drastically” (p. 18). The more that the next generation of Nigerian adults are able to find employment and access the labour market, the more the state will be able to lead West Africa to the successful realization of its ambitions Oguanobi, Akamobi, Aniebo & Mgbemena, 2014). The chart below shows that of those surveyed, most youth who are in danger of being trafficked are in that position because of a lack of employment opportunities:
Source: Iyanda & Osundina (2014)
By maintaining security throughout the region, starting in Gambia, Nigeria can create an environment in which stability is fostered and opportunities flourish. The military plays a vital role in limiting the rise of radical Islamic terrorism. With Gambia being a state that is 90% Islamic and that has been funded in the past by terrorist-supporting states in the Middle East, the strategy going forward is to stop terror cells in Gambia from spreading. This will help to cut off the stream that flows from the ME to Africa by way of the West to groups like Boko Haram, which threaten to destabilize Nigeria and prevent its rise to prosperity. The most vital strategy here, therefore, is to continue to concentrate on stopping these forces and preventing them from acquiring support in the region. The cooperation between Gambia and Nigeria depends precisely on this. As the map below shows, Gambia is the “way in” to West Africa, and the troubles that trickle in, which lead to terror and destabilization have to be confronted and stopped there before they reach Nigeria by way of Mali, Senegal and Gambia.
Source: http://venturesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Map-of-West-AFrica.gif
References
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Cham, L. (2013). Nigeria clocks 53—Relations with Gambia grows. Retrieved from http://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/article/nigeria-clocks-53-relations-with-gambia-grows
Dwyer, M. (2017). Fragmented forces: The development of the Gambian military.  African Security Review, 26(4), 362-377.
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