Reporting by The Nation indicates Nigeria’s counterterror leadership is linking Sahel instability to worsening insecurity at home, citing cross-border extremist networks and spillover effects.
Officials argue that coups and the resulting security gaps in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali have increased militant mobility, deepened recruitment, and complicated joint operations.
The warning reinforces that Nigeria’s security challenge is increasingly transnational—requiring regional diplomacy, intelligence fusion, and stronger border controls.
Major General Garba Laka said: “We have these countries facing these threats and we think we will see peace in Nigeria? No.” He added: “As long as those countries keep on facing this threat, Nigeria will continue facing the brunt.”
Echotitbits take: Nigeria cannot stabilize fully if the Sahel remains a revolving door for armed groups. Watch for concrete steps on border surveillance, regional coordination, and local stabilization in frontline states.
Source: The Nation — December 23, 2025 (https://thenationonlineng.net/nctc-boss-coups-in-mali-niger-burkina-faso-worsen-security-in-nigeria/)
The Nation 2025-12-23
For the first time since Malian Soldiers staged a mutiny and executed a coup to topple the almost seven year administration of Ibrahim Keita on Tuesday, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari has called on the unconstitutional ‘authority’ in the landlocked Sahel nation to restore constitutional order forthwith.
President Buhari Thursday afternoon described the events in Mali as a setback for regional diplomacy, according to a statement posted on his verified Twitter page.
“The events in Mali are great setbacks for regional diplomacy, with grave consequences for the peace and security of West Africa. It is time for the unconstitutional ‘authority’ in Mali to act responsibly and ensure restoration of constitutional order, peace and stability”, the President said.
President Buhari, who was among a delegation of leaders in the West African bloc that visited Bamako, the Malian capital on July 24 with the hope of a successful intervention to broker peace between Keita’s government and opposition movement expressed fear that if sanity isn’t restored in Mali, the peace of the region may be at risk. International allies such as France, the United Nations (UN), and the European Union (EU) have also expressed this sentiment.
President Muhammadu Buhari paid a one-day visit to Mali on July 23, 2020.
“Nigeria strongly supports the efforts of ECOWAS Chairman, President Mahamadou Issoufou, for wider regional and continental consultations with ECOWAS, the AU and the UN, and the adoption of strong measures to bring speedy resolution to the situation.
“A politically stable Mali is paramount and crucial to the stability of the sub-region. We must all join efforts, ECOWAS, the AU, the UN and other stakeholders, and work together until sanity returns to Mali with the restoration of Civil Administration, the President said.
At the peace talk meeting in Mali on July 24 were ECOWAS Special Envoy, former President Goodluck Jonathan, and leader of the opposition, Imam Mahmoud Dicko and representatives of opposition alliance, M5 and Civil Society Organisations, who all briefed the high power delegate that include President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, host President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Presidents Machy Sall of Senegal, Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire.
A file photo of the presidents of Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Niger in a peace talk meeting with Malian President and leaders of a protest movement clamouring for the resignation of their President.
The coup in Mali happened only hours after former President Goodluck Jonathan, who is among a special ECOWAS envoy tasked with brokering peace in the troubled Mali, on Tuesday led the ECOWAS Mission team to Mali on a visit to President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
President Muhammadu Buhari receives ex-President Goodluck Jonathan at the State House Abuja, Tuesday August 18, 2020. Photo: Femi Adesina
“We told them that no international organization, including the African Union (AU), United Nations (UN), and others, would agree with their position. We continued to emphasize the need for dialogue,” Jonathan was quoted as saying while briefing President Buhari at the State House on Tuesday.
Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita resigned late on Tuesday, hours after mutinying soldiers seized him from his home following months of mass protests against alleged corruption and worsening security in the West African country, Al Jazeera Media Network has reported.
Speaking on national broadcaster ORTM just before midnight, a distressed Keita said his resignation – three years before his final term was due to end – was effective immediately. He also declared the dissolution of his government and the National Assembly.
“If today, certain elements of our armed forces want this to end through their intervention, do I really have a choice?” Keita said in a brief address from a military base in Kati outside the capital Bamako where he had been detained earlier in the day.
“I wish no blood to be shed to keep me in power,” he said. “I have decided to step down from office.”
It was not immediately clear who was leading the revolt, who would govern in Keita’s absence or what the mutineers wanted.
Images posted earlier on social media said to be taken at the Kati garrison showed Keita and his Prime Minister Boubou Cisse surrounded by armed soldiers.
The M5-RFP coalition behind the protests signalled support for the mutineers’ action on Tuesday, with spokesman Nouhoum Togo telling Reuters news agency it was “not a military coup but a popular insurrection.”
The news of Keita’s detention was met with alarm by the United Nations, the former colonial power France and elsewhere in the international community. But in the capital, anti-government protesters who first took to the streets back in June to demand Keita’s resignation, cheered the soldiers’ actions.
“All the Malian people are tired – we have had enough,” one demonstrator said.
The political upheaval unfolded months after disputed legislative elections, and came as support for Keita tumbled amid criticism of his government’s handling of a spiralling security situation in the northern and central regions that has entangled regional and international governments, as well as a United Nations mission.
The downfall of Keita, who was first elected in 2013 and returned to office five years later, closely mirrors that of his predecessor.
Amadou Toumani Toure was forced out of the presidency in a coup in 2012 after a series of punishing military defeats. That time, the attacks were carried out by ethnic Tuareg separatist rebels. This time, Mali’s military has sometimes seemed powerless to stop fighters linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS).
The 2012 mutiny also erupted at the same Kati military camp, and hastened the fall of Mali’s north to armed groups. Ultimately a French-led military operation ousted the fighters, but they merely regrouped and expanded their reach into central Mali during Keita’s presidency.
In recent weeks, anxiety had mounted about another military-led change of power in Mali after regional mediators from ECOWAS failed to bridge the impasse between Keita’s government and opposition leaders.
Keita tried to meet protesters’ demands through a series of concessions, and even said he was open to redoing disputed legislative elections. But those overtures were swiftly rejected by opposition leaders who said they would not stop short of Keita’s resignation.
Then on Tuesday, soldiers in Kati took weapons from the armoury at the barracks and detained senior military officers. Anti-government protesters immediately cheered the soldiers’ actions, and some set fire to a building that belongs to Mali’s justice minister in the capital.
Cisse urged the soldiers to put down their arms.
“There is no problem whose solution cannot be found through dialogue,” he said in a statement.
But the wheels already were in motion – armed men began detaining people in Bamako too, including Keita, Cisse and the country’s finance minister, Abdoulaye Daffe.
Tuesday’s developments were condemned by the African Union, the United States, and the regional bloc ECOWAS. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sought “the immediate restoration of constitutional order and rule of law,” according to his spokesman.
Chairman of the African Union, Moussa Faki Mahamat, said he “energetically” condemned Keita and Cisse’s arrest and called “for their immediate liberation.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France “condemns in the strongest terms this grave event.” J Peter Pham, the US envoy to the Sahel, said on Twitter that the US was “opposed to all extra-constitutional changes of government.”
ECOWAS denounced “the overthrow by putschist soldiers of the democratically elected government” and ordered the closing of regional borders with Mali as well as the suspension of all financial flows between Mali and its 15 members states.
The European Union (EU) has on Tuesday condemned an “attempted coup” in Mali where Soldiers staged a mutiny, capturing the nation’s President, Prime Minister, Military Chiefs and political leaders.
A statement by the bloc’s diplomatic chief, Josep Borrell, read that: “The European Union condemns the attempted coup d’etat underway in Mali and rejects all unconstitutional change
“This can in no way be a response to the profound socio-economic crisis which has been hitting Mali for some months.”
The EU, which has operated a mission training the armed forces in Mali since 2013, joined the UN and regional bloc ECOWAS in calling for dialogue.
“A consensual outcome respecting constitutional principles, international law and human rights is the only way to avoid destabilising not only Mali but the whole region,” Borrell said in his statement
One of the leaders of the mutineering soldiers told AFP that “the president and the prime minister are under our control” after being “arrested” at Keita’s residence in the capital Bamako.
Mali’s President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, and Prime Minister, Boubou Cisse, have been arrested by mutinying soldiers, according to several reports.
Al Jazeera Media Network reports that the development on Tuesday came hours after soldiers took up arms and staged an apparent mutiny at a key base in Kati, a town close to the capital, Bamako.
A collage of arrested Malian President , Ibrahim Keïta and Prime Minister, Boubou CissëIt followed a weeks-long political crisis that has seen opposition protesters taking to the streets to demand the departure of Keita, accusing him of allowing the country’s economy to collapse and mishandling a worsening security situation.
Earlier, protesters gathered at a square in Bamako while regional and international powers urged the soldiers to return to the barracks and foreign embassies advised their citizens to stay indoors.
The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, has condemned the arrests of Keita, Cisse and other officials.
Mahamat also condemned any attempt at “anti-constitutional” change and called on the mutinying soldier’s to respect the state’s institutions.
“I energetically condemn the arrest of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the prime minister and other members of the Malian government and call for their immediate liberation,” he wrote on Twitter.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has said Russia has received information about the arrests of Mali’s president and prime minister, RIA news agency reported without providing further details.
He also said, according to the media outlet, that Moscow is concerned about the events in Mali.
Developments are moving fast in Mali.
AFP news agency, citing a source identified as a leader of the mutiny, said the soldiers have detained Keita and Cisse.
“We can tell you that the president and the prime minister are under our control,” the leader, who requested anonymity, told AFP.
He added that the pair had been “arrested” at Keita’s residence in Bamako.
Another military official, who also declined to be named, said the president and prime minister were in an armoured vehicle en route to Kati.
Reuters news agency has reported, citing two security sources, that Keita has been arrested by mutinying soldiers in Bamako.
The arrest came after soldiers mutinied at the Kati army base and rounded up a number of senior civilian and military officials, according to Reuters.
French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the soldiers’ mutiny in Mali on Tuesday with his Malian counterpart and other West African leaders, expressing his support for mediation efforts by the ECOWAS regional bloc, the presidency in Paris said.
Macron discussed the unfolding situation with Keita and the leaders of Niger, Ivory Coast and Senegal, and “condemned the attempted mutiny under way,” the Elysee Palace said in a statement.
The French presidency did not say precisely when Macron’s talks with the African leaders took place.
In Bamako, hundreds of people have poured into the square around the Independence Monument, the site of mass protests since June, calling for Keita to quit over alleged corruption and worsening security.
“Whether he’s been arrested or not, what is certain is that his end is near. God is granting our prayers. IBK is finished,” Haidara Assetou Cisse, a teacher, told Reuters news agency, referring to the president by his initials.
“We have come out today to call for the total resignation of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Because we heard there were shots fired by the military and we have come out to help our soldiers get rid of IBK,” opposition supporter Aboubacar Ibrahim Maiga said.
Protesters have also attacked the justice minister’s personal offices, setting parts of them on fire, a Reuters witness said.
Cisse, the Malian prime minister, called on the mutinying soldiers to stand down and urged dialogue to resolve the situation.
In a statement, he said the mutiny “reflects a certain frustration that could have legitimate causes. The government of Mali asks all the authors of these acts to stand down.”
France denounced “in the strongest terms” what it described as a mutiny launched by soldiers in Mali.
“France has become aware of the mutiny that has taken place today in Kati, Mali. It condemns in the strongest terms this serious event,” Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian said in a statement that also urged the soldiers to return to their barracks “without delay.”
Opposition supporters react to the news of a possible mutiny of soldiers in the military base in Kati, outside the capital Bamako, at Independence Square in Bamako, Mali August 18, 2020.
The West African bloc ECOWAS called on the soldiers “to return to their barracks without delay”.
“This mutiny comes at a time when, for several months now, ECOWAS has been taking initiatives and conducting mediation efforts with all the Malian parties,” the bloc said in a statement.
Gunfire was heard at an army base near Bamako, with the Norwegian embassy talking of a possible military mutiny. Soldiers fired their guns into the air in the base in Kati, some 15km (9 miles) from Bamako.
Witnesses said armoured tanks and military vehicles could be seen on the streets of Kati, The Associated Press news agency reported.
Idowu Sowunmi
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