*Originally published in 2022 and preserved as part of our archive project.Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work.

African militaries are currently undergoing monumental upgrades. Western countries, including the United States (US), are pouring training and equipment into these militaries to make them more proficient in helping African governments to provide “African solutions to African problems.” However, many African militaries function under the shadow of human rights atrocities committed in the past. Under the guise of asserting sovereignty and keeping the civil peace, some African leaders have also dispatched their militaries for political purposes, letting them loose domestically as paramilitary-like type forces and commit atrocities to strike fear in citizens. This has set a dangerous precedent of behavior from which African militaries across the continent are still struggling to break free. US security assistance and security cooperation programs overly focused on training and equipping while not addressing the political context in which African militaries function, at best will just serve to reinforce this status quo, at worst can make human rights atrocities much worse and instigate destabilization. In order to address these issues, security assistance and security cooperation under the guise of capacity building efforts must concentrate more on provisions to instill the systemic controls and ethics conducive to developing well trained militaries that are free of corruption, respect human rights and assist in building legitimate governments. Not only will this help prevent future atrocities, promote stabilization and democratic controls over the military but will go much further to support US national security objectives.

Liberia has become infamous atrocities committed by both sides during its long and bloody civil war in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Former president of Liberia Samuel Doe ordered his military to target anyone who threatened his tenuous hold on power. One such challenger was General Thomas Quiwonkpa. Doe’s soldiers apprehended and stripped General Quiwonkpa naked and paraded him through the streets before chopping him up and feasting on the pieces while hundreds watched in horror.[1] Rebel soldiers responded to those atrocities by committing their own, chopping body parts off of rural villagers to demonstrate the incapability of the Liberian government to protect its citizens. These rebels later became regular soldiers in the Liberian army once Samuel Doe was violently overthrown. 

Even stable and prosperous countries like Nigeria, which have little difficulty building and equipping their military, struggle with preventing soldiers from committing human rights abuses. Under the guise of countering Boko Haram, military forces have been implicated in the recruitment of child soldiers, the use of intimidation, unlawful killings and generally using heavy-handed tactics against the population.  As in Liberia, Nigerian soldiers have been routinely used to intimidate the public and target anyone thought to challenge the government or its supporters.[2] In the 1990s, the government used its military to shut down protests that disrupted its oil production and revenues, including use of helicopter gunships to strafe down unarmed civilians who were focused on calling attention to the pollution damage to water, land, and fishing.

In an effort to develop militaries that can effectively combat insurgents and assist in international peacekeeping and counterterrorism efforts, the United States is building military capacity in African countries. Unfortunately, the human rights abuses and general poor behavior of militaries have not ceased. For example, militaries in Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan are known to have engaged in crimes such as rape, torture, the execution of prisoners and noncombatants, and international resource theft. In addition, military coups have also been a constant difficulty for many nations within Sub-Saharan Africa, including the Comoros, the Gambia, Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Madagascar, and others. Yet, military capacity building appears to have done little to address these problems, as evidenced by very recent events in the Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – countries in which the United States, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and China have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance.  In fact, in many instances, military capacity efforts have led to further destabilization as militaries became more capable in the provision of violence without restraint.

In this analysis, first I will review the colonial legacy of African militaries. Since their inception, most African militaries have trained and focused on the provision of internal security rather than external security within the confines of a non-democratic political system.  Next I will present a brief case study of Nigeria. Due to factors such as oil wealth and Western government provided security assistance, the Nigerian military is one of the largest, well-equipped and well-trained force on the Continent. However, Nigerian leaders continue to use the military for political purposes, while also ignoring the military’s human rights abuses. In an effort to find the missing ingredient in training, I present an overview of military professionalization and its link to building competent militaries that are free of corruption, respect human rights and assist in building legitimate governments. Finally I end with a presentation of policy prescriptions and recommendations on how to build well-trained militaries that reinforce rather than undermine state-society relations.

The Colonial Legacy in African Militaries

Unfortunately, the legacy of colonialism has negatively affected many African institutions and the military is no different. British, French and Belgian colonial rulers recruited certain tribes or ethnic groups into the military. For colonial governments, this divide-and-conquer strategy was a logical solution to effectively rule large and diverse areas with small imperial armies. This colonial legacy left a built-in bias that is still noticeable in African politics. In Rwanda, the Belgians placed the Tutsi minority into positions of power and Tutsis made up the bulk of the armed forces. The French and British practiced similar tactics, recruiting minority tribal groups into the armed forces in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Togo and Burkina Faso.[3] For instance, the British-created Kings African Rifles (K.A.R.) in Kenya was composed of mainly Maasai and some Swahili, who fought with the British against the rebellious Kikuyu.[4] These African soldiers also were recruited into fighting in World Wars I and II, and once they had returned back to their home countries, they continued to put down rebellions, often organized by particular tribes, against colonial rule.[5] Once the European powers granted the African territories independence, the die had already been cast, and ethnic biases built into institutions, often predicated upon civil violence to support the overall socio-political and socio-economic status quo, would prove durable.

As African countries made the transition to political independence, positions of political power once isolated from particular, and typically majority, ethnic groups came within reach. The press for democratization and popular control often left out ethnic minorities who were previously in power. In the early 1960s, in ethnically diverse Nigeria, the British-educated Catholic minority Igbo made up the bulk of the officer corps. However, over 70 percent of the rank-and-file were Muslim Hausa or Fulani people. When a group of Igbo officers attempted a coup, killing the Muslim Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Bulewa, the remaining Igbo officers remained loyal to the government and put down the coup.  Regardless, many rank and file believed that the Igbo officers were too lenient on the rebels and launched their own rebellion, killing many officers and federal employees of Igbo descent, leaving a predominately Muslim, and military rule in Nigeria.[6]  Since the post-war period, similar ethnically-driven military coups took place all over the continent in Burkina Faso, Uganda, the Congo, Liberia and Central African Republic. [7] Underlying such domestic, highly politicized, and paramilitary use of the central armed forces – including the military themselves taking over politics – was the lack of a common civic order and culture, itself a legacy of European colonialism and Cold War divides that put a premium on commercial extraction over sustainable and legitimate development of institutions that could grow a true national identity. Diverse ethnic groups existed on the African continent before European........

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