Does the crisis in Sudan affect Nigeria?

Old habits die hard. When people or groups are wired a certain way and do not deliberately reprogramme themselves, they will surely revert to their old ways. This explains the fighting that has broken out in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. The country is so used to conflict that the outbreak of fighting was almost inevitable. Sudan gained independence at the start of 1956, but the country’s first civil war started even before, in 1955, over demands for increased regional autonomy from the Southern region. This first civil war lasted until 1972 and left at least half a million people dead. The war ended unsatisfactorily, and this unsatisfactory ending created the conditions that led to another lengthy civil war between the central Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The second war, which started in 1983 and ended in 2005, caused widespread famine and the deaths of at least two million people. It led to the country’s fragmentation as South Sudan broke away in 2011.

Sudan is the third-largest country in Africa, after Algeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It is surrounded by Chad, the Central African Republic, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, and South Sudan, and is separated from the Arabian Peninsula by the Red Sea; that is, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Africa, Eastern Africa and West Africa. Furthermore, the country’s geographical reach extends to almost all the weak points on the African continent, such as the Congo Basin, the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes of Africa, the Gulf of Aden, the Maghreb, the Nile Basin, the Sahel, and the Indian Ocean. Sudan has also served as a common land route for terrorists and political insurgents. Its strategic position has exposed it to poverty, political instability, climate change crisis and international terrorism.

Sudan has also had a coup culture, having had at least six successful coups in its post-independence history. The country’s problem was exacerbated by the fragmentation of the military by former dictator Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, who broke up the armed establishment to make it harder for him to be overthrown, but this action ended up proliferating armed militias headed by warlords, who want a piece of the power pie.

The most recent violence broke out on 15 April―between the leader of the army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who seized control of the government from al-Bashir in 2019, and the warlord Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader, also known by the nom de guerre, Hemedti―over the planned integration of the RSF, a paramilitary created by al-Bashir, into the regular army and their discontent with power-sharing modalities.

The RSF was formerly known as the Janjaweed, which the al-Bashir government tasked with the violent pacification of the Land Cruiser War in Darfur. The Land Cruiser War began in 2003 because of the supposed neglect of Western Sudan and disregard for non-Arab Sudanese nationals. The government equipped Arab militias―known as the Janjaweed―to combat the insurrection, but these government-funded militias went beyond fighting rebels to attacking innocent civilians and obstructing international aid organisations, which led to the displacement of more than two million people and the deaths of almost half a million people.

The group functioned as an internal mercenary force that benefited many parties: the Army could save its resources, the dictatorship could avoid direct accountability, and the Janjaweed leadership could gain financial and political power. All three happened.

Inevitably, the Janjaweed grew and were ultimately able to sell the expertise they gained in indiscriminate murder to clients in the Gulf States, such as Saudi Arabia, who used them to commit atrocities in Yemen. With support from various actors, including the Gulf States and rebellious General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, Hemedti could infiltrate respectable leadership in the region from his early days as a bandit and violence hustler. He also managed to become an almost indispensable factor in the security of, arguably, the most fragile region in Africa. In hindsight, the threat posed by the Janjaweed, now RSF, was always clear. Hemedti’s union with Burhan was too convenient for comfort, so a scuffle for power and control has always been inevitable.

In December 2022, the Sudanese military and civilian leaders agreed to finalise a deal to end military rule and return the country to a civilian government to end the crisis caused by the 2021 coup. The paramilitary force recommended a slow, 10-year process, but the army insisted that two years would be sufficient.

Since then, explosions have rocked the Sudanese capital as both groups continue to trade attacks on each other’s bases. This bloody power struggle has killed hundreds of people, including at least three United Nations World Food Programme workers. A spokesperson reported that two more employees were injured while carrying out their duties, and a humanitarian aircraft was damaged in the debacle.

The tricky part is both military leaders have external supporters: Egypt backs Burhan, while the Saudis back Hemedti. There is also the suspicion that Russia and the United States have chosen sides. With about 100,000 men, the RSF is unusually large for a paramilitary force, and it is well-equipped with American weapons, likely to have been supplied by the Saudis. It got rich through funding from the European Union (EU). After the Land Cruiser War, millions of euros were paid to the Janjaweed by the EU to stop illegal migrants from reaching the Mediterranean, despite the group’s well-documented human rights abuses.

For now, the only wall between the battle-ridden country and a full-fledged nationwide civil war is that many of the armed groups and communal militias, not under the control of the two key figures, haven’t picked sides or inserted themselves as co-competitors yet.

Given the current recalcitrance of the military leaders, which might make ongoing demands for a ceasefire unsuccessful, we have to consider the possible fallouts of extended fighting in Sudan on its neighbours and regions farther away.

For starters, sustained warfare always triggers mass migration and cross-national disruption, and Egypt, Eritrea, Chad, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan and the Red Sea border Sudan. There is a trend of instability and war in the region. Although Egypt, which is fairly stable and prosperous compared to its neighbours, is less likely to be destabilised by mass illegal and unchecked migration, other countries are too poor or disadvantaged to resist the influx of foreigners.

How does this affect Nigeria?

The total distance between Sudan and Nigeria is 2841 kilometres and 920.65 metres. It takes just 57 hours to get to Nigeria from Sudan at a travel speed of 50km per hour, so it takes a war-weary Sudanese much less than a week to migrate to Nigeria. Worthy to note, Nigeria has already been affected by the migration from the north-eastern region, which has compounded both the insecurity in Northern Nigeria and the Sahelian crisis that has ravaged the Middle-Belt and other West African countries―Togo, Ghana, and the Benin Republic that recently established a military support arrangement with the Rwandan Army to protect itself from a growing Jihadist terror problem.

For instance, Chad, an easy inroad into northern Nigeria, could be used as a linking route to West and East African locations, leading to an inflow of arms and ammunition, which could stimulate another wave of Boko Haram insurgency. This is the last thing a country already troubled by Boko Haram and the Islamic State In West African Province (ISWAP) needs.

Also, the ties between the two African countries go beyond their physical borders. As the British incursion into what became Nigeria intensified, Sokoto―the imperial state in the region―came under attack by a British force led by Frederick Lugard. Muhammadu Attahiru I, the last independent Sultan of Sokoto, decided to engage the British and lost. While being hunted by the British, Attahiru started gathering followers for an insurgent campaign. The vast number of civilians who joined Attahiru and the expansion of his troop became concerning for the British and emirs cooperating with them, so they launched an attack on the growing resistance and, with their superior firepower, made short work of them. Muhammadu Attahiru was killed on 15 March 1903, just over 120 years ago.

The movement’s remaining followers and survivors, under the leadership of his son Muhammad Bello bin Attahiru, migrated east and made their home in Sudan, where many of their descendants reside today.

Nigeria’s Government, which sees no immediate threat to its security, says it is monitoring the situation through security agencies. However, Professor Jide Osuntokun―a former Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs―and other experts assert that Sudanese issues portend grave danger for the self-styled Giant of Africa and other African countries because there are about five million Sudanese with Nigerian ancestry. They are called Felata, which, according to him, are the corrupt form of the Fulani and are prone to come back to Nigeria if push comes to shove. We agree with this assessment given that the national borders in the region are not seen as borders by many, including Nigeria’s outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari.

These teeming issues provide the West African giant with a truckload of lessons. First, the Nigerian federation should note that an overbearing government insistent on violently repressing some ethnic and religious groups—and paramilitary forces, whose focus shifted from protecting citizens to seeking power—triggered Sudan’s woes.

Additionally, people believe the leading cause of the Sudanese tension is the cultural and religious differences between its North―predominantly Muslim and Arabic-speaking―and South―which leans towards Christian and traditional beliefs and has always felt oppressed by its northern neighbours. Except for the nature of the disparity in the educational levels of the regions, the similarities between Sudan and Nigeria are uncanny. The only difference is the latter has a thermostat that has fought desperately to keep things from boiling over.

Nigeria has to understand that Sudan has lost 60 years and almost four million people because of its inability to communicate, rein in emotion, give priority to reason, resolve disputes amicably and understand that the outcomes of violent conflicts are not worth the cost.

Therefore, the Nigerian government has to consider the possible repercussions of armed resistance to oppression, and those resisting also need to see the big picture and move in ways that will minimise the possibility of vicious outbreaks in their own spaces.