The Hidden Hands Behind Africa’s Ongoing Conflicts Geopolitics And Greed

African conflicts rage from Biafra to the Sahel, from the Horn of Africa to the forests of the Congo and Africa’s fight for sovereignty has too often been reduced to a footnote in narratives spun by global powers.

While the continent’s struggles are frequently framed as internal governance failures or tribal conflict, a deeper interrogation reveals a recurring pattern of foreign meddling, proxy warfare, and economic coercion by Western nations, Gulf monarchies, and pan-Islamic alliances. The battle for independence did not end with the lowering of colonial flags; it merely shapeshifted into a new campaign of control.

A Continent Cornered

This article maps a strategic continuum of external disruption orchestrated by Britain, France, the EU, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Islamic networks operating across Africa’s political and economic landscape. From arms sales and regime change to debt dependency and disinformation, these actors have fine-tuned the machinery of domination, blending Cold War tactics with 21st-century tools. Whether in West Africa, the Horn, or Central Africa, the throughline remains consistent: weaken national agency, militarise local crises, and secure influence under the pretext of stability, security, or development.

Biafra, Greed, Grievance, the Ghosts of Empire and the Business of War

The Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970), often euphemised as a domestic conflict for national unity, was in reality a battleground for imperial interests. Britain, anxious to preserve access to the oil-rich Niger Delta, threw its weight behind the federal government, supplying arms and diplomatic cover. Biafra’s secessionist bid, rooted in self-determination, was reframed as a rebellion, and media narratives shifted accordingly.

Though often reduced to a struggle over oil, the reality is more fragmented. The Niger Delta, home to the majority of Nigeria’s crude reserves, never fully aligned with Biafra, and many communities within it rejected both Igbo nationalism and federal rule. The war, then, was not simply imperial powers defending resource access, but also a reflection of elite ambitions, ethnic misalignments, and the failure to build an inclusive post-colonial state. British support for the federal government was pragmatic: stability over secession, control over chaos.

The legacy persists. The resurgence of Biafran sentiment through the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is met with militarised crackdowns, while Western oil multinationals maintain stakes in the region. There is little appetite in London or Washington to address human rights abuses when their energy security is at stake.

“London framed Biafra as a civil matter, but it was always about oil,” says historian Dr. Aisha Balarabe of SOAS. “That narrative logic hasn’t changed.”

The Sahel Experiment: Exporting Instability Under The Banner Of Security

The Sahel, stretching across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, has become a testing ground for post-colonial manipulation. France’s Operation Barkhane, launched under the guise of counterterrorism, evolved into a deeply unpopular military occupation. Rather than curbing jihadist violence, it appeared to entrench it.

When France’s forces withdrew, the vacuum was quickly filled. The UAE began supplying arms and training to Niger’s military; Turkey and Qatar expanded ideological networks; and the United States entrenched its drone bases, largely shielded from public oversight. These interventions bypass parliaments and undermine civilian institutions, empowering military elites while marginalising democratic accountability.

“What you’re seeing is not a war on terror,” says Ibrahima Kane of the Open Society Foundation. “It’s a war for control of land, narratives, and future alignments.”

The Horn Of Africa: When Peace Disrupts The Geopolitical Balance

The 2018 peace accord between Ethiopia and Eritrea, brokered mainly by African leaders, upended the strategic calculus of Western powers. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s détente with President Isaias Afwerki posed a challenge to U.S. and EU military interests in Djibouti and the Red Sea. Instead of bolstering peace efforts, the West responded with muted scepticism.

When Ethiopia descended into civil war in Tigray, the reaction from Washington and Brussels was disjointed. Sanctions were levied, but humanitarian support was politicised. Meanwhile, Gulf actors, notably the UAE, exploited the fog of war to supply drones and other weaponry, reshaping the conflict.

“The West was more concerned about preserving military assets in Djibouti than resolving the Ethiopian crisis,” says Salem Tsegaye, a conflict analyst based in Nairobi.

The Congo Conundrum The Riches That Invite Ruin

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) exemplifies the paradox of resource wealth and political weakness. With over $24 trillion in untapped minerals, Congo should be an economic powerhouse. Instead, it remains the epicentre of what many call “managed chaos”, a system that sustains mining profits by perpetuating insecurity.

Western-backed multinationals operate with little oversight, while Rwanda and Uganda, both major recipients of U.S. and UK aid, are repeatedly implicated in supporting militia incursions. The result is a profitable stalemate: enough violence to prevent sovereignty, enough calm to extract minerals.

“It’s a controlled instability,” notes Jean-Roger Mbala, a Kinshasa-based investigative journalist. “The real war is not for territory it’s for silence.”

Revolutions Interrupted, Democracy Delayed In Sudan

In Sudan, the ouster of Omar al-Bashir in 2019 sparked hopes of democratic rebirth. But foreign powers soon intervened to shape the transition. Egypt and the UAE backed the military council, fearing that civilian rule would embolden pro-democracy movements at home. Saudi Arabia pursued ceasefires that preserved its maritime interests, while Israel quietly courted normalisation with military rulers.

The United States and European Union oscillated between rhetoric and inaction. While championing democratic ideals publicly, they offered minimal financial or logistical backing for democratic structures, leaving space for another coup and the spiral of violence that followed.

Strategies of Control The Old Tactics And New Tools

Across every African theatre of disruption, be it Nigeria’s southeast, Mali’s deserts, the mountains of Tigray, or the mineral seams of Congo, a familiar playbook emerges. While the languages of intervention have evolved, the objectives remain strikingly familiar: extract value, manage narratives, and shape outcomes. This is not accidental; it is a strategy.

• Narrative Dominance is often the first line of control. Foreign-funded think tanks, embedded correspondents, and policy advisors shape how African crises are perceived globally. Secessionist struggles are framed as tribal chaos; military juntas are cast as unfortunate necessities; and popular resistance is painted as extremism. Through this lens, foreign intervention becomes not exploitation but “assistance.” In Biafra, the West’s narrative framed a people’s fight for self-determination as a regional rebellion. In Sudan, the military’s entrenchment is still wrapped in the rhetoric of “stability.”
• Military Embedding is the second tool. Bases, drones, training missions, and arms deals provide physical infrastructure for foreign leverage. Whether in Niamey or Djibouti, these installations are not mere staging grounds for defence; they are footholds in the continental power game. Under the guise of security partnerships, Western powers and increasingly Gulf states anchor themselves to Africa’s geography. In doing so, they also bind African leaders to security compacts that bypass democratic oversight. These entanglements empower juntas, weaken civil institutions, and obscure responsibility. France’s presence in the Sahel, the U.S. drone network in Niger, and Emirati drones in Ethiopia all speak to this more profound logic of militarised alignment.
• Financial Leverage operates more subtly but no less effectively. Development aid is now rarely neutral; it comes tied to reform conditionalities, often dictated by Bretton Woods institutions and Western development agencies. Structural Adjustment may no longer be an overt term, but its ghost lives on in fiscal policies that gut public services, privatise state assets, and tether economic policy to debt servicing. Sudan’s post-Bashir government, for example, was starved of Western financial support at a moment when cash flow could have stabilised the democratic transition. Instead, it was squeezed, and the military filled the vacuum.
• Proxy Utilisation is perhaps the most insidious tactic of all. Regional powers like Rwanda, Egypt, and the UAE serve as intermediaries of control. Their domestic concerns align temporarily with the interests of Western or Gulf sponsors. In Congo, Rwanda’s incursions serve mining interests; in Sudan, Egypt’s preferences steer the outcome of ceasefires. These relationships offer plausible deniability to global powers while executing the same imperial functions: suppressing rebellion, protecting extraction corridors, and derailing pan-African solidarity.
• In the 20th century, control came via gunboats and colonial officers. Today, it comes cloaked in peacekeeping, economic reform, drone diplomacy, and development assistance. What has changed is not the desire to dominate but the sophistication of the means.

IMPLICATIONS FOR AFRICA AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Africa’s experience is not an anomaly. Similar patterns of “stabilised disruption” are visible across the Global South from Bolivia’s lithium-rich Andes to Syria’s contested oil fields. The fight for sovereignty is a fight for narrative, resources, and political authorship in a world where the global order is being redrawn.

The African Union has faltered in this arena, often muted in the face of imperial manoeuvres. Ruling elites increasingly co-opt regional blocs like ECOWAS. But new formations like BRICS+, the AES bloc, and civil society movements offer an opportunity to rewrite the script.

“Africa must stop being the object of geopolitics and become its author,” says former AU Ambassador Arikana Chihombori-Quao

The Struggle is Far From Over

This is not the end. What we have traced here is not a conclusion but a fragment of a wider story, one chapter in a long, unfinished struggle.

From Biafra’s silenced referendum to Siudan’s ruptured revolution, from the mineral wars of the Congo to the drone deals in the Sahel, the imperial web is still being spun. The actors may change, France waning, Gulf powers rising, the U.S. recalibrating, but the script remains: Africa must be managed, not empowered.

Yet the narrative is beginning to fray. Citizens are resisting the imposed binaries of “stability vs chaos.” Movements are emerging that reject both Western conditionality and local authoritarianism. The BRICS expansion, the rise of AES, and a new continental discourse on sovereignty are early signals that Africa is re-entering the global stage not as a subject but as a strategist.

This series, like the struggle it chronicles, will continue.

As Sankara warned,

He who feeds you, controls you. But as today’s Africans are learning: He who tells your story shapes your destiny.