Suchergebnisse

Conflict, wars and political instability that characterised the international system and the need for international peace and security is the central idea behind the formation of the United Nations as an international institutional framework that will guarantee global peace and security. Since its establishment in 1945 the United Nations has recorded remarkable achievements in the area of peace keeping, conflict resolution /management through the instrumentality of her peace keeping missions in different part of the globe and Africa in particular. Post-colonial Africa has been characterised by all forms of political instabilities precipitated by the internal contradictions within the continent and further manifested in the forms of ethno-religious crisis, militancy, terrorism, electoral violence etc. these situations has made UN intervention inevitable. However, in the recent past the involvement of UN Peace Keepers in Sexual abuse and exploitations in Central African Republic, Darfur, Mali, Liberia, and Sierra Leone etc. poses a lot of threat to the credibility of the UN. It is based on this that this paper attempts an investigation into the involvement of UN Peace Keeper in sexual exploitation and the relationship between peace keeping and sexual abuses with a view to ascertaining the factors that instigates peace keeper into sexual exploitations and the factors that also exposes people to sexual exploitation. Bearing in mind the nature of the research problem, this paper employed both the Organski's collective security theory and Abraham Maslow's theory of needs to examine both the political and psychological dimensions of the phenomenon. It is the position of this paper that the participation of UN Peace Keepers in sexual exploitation is a deviant behaviour and it undermines the credibility that the UN is known for. The paper also recommends among others the need for the UN to empower host countries to punish perpetuators of sexual exploitations.

Understanding the formation and consequences of formal military alliances is a research area that is central to the study of international relations. Military alliances help define and shape the nature of interactions between countries, and by structuring international obligations; they help construct the nature of the international system. Over time, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have been faced with myriads of security challenges, ranging from militancy, ethno-religious crisis, political conflict, human and drug trafficking, to trans-border crimes. In recent times however, terrorism and insurgency have become a major security threat to the sovereignty of these countries, particularly the threat of Boko Haram in the Northeast of Nigeria and countries of the Lake Chad region; hence the formation of the Multi-National Joint Task Force as a military alliance to combat terrorism. The paper is thus, an attempt to investigate the role of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) in countering Boko Haram terrorism within Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. In interrogating the above problem, this paper scooped from secondary data and employed the Simon Walt's theory of alliance as analytical framework. It is the position of the paper that the MNJTF has made remarkable achievement in the fight against Boko Haram. In the final analysis, the paper recommends, among other things, the need for participating states in the MNJTF to be much more committed in terms of funding and purchase of military equipment to further enhance military preparedness and capabilities.

West Africa and the Sahel region are grappling with several security challenges in the post-colonial era. The geopolitical architecture vis-à-vis the ecological characteristics of these regions has in no small way contributed to precipitating insecurity. This paper, therefore, is an attempt to analyse the nexus between environment and security with a view to bringing to bear the modern understanding of security. It is secondary research and it adopts Homer-Dixon's theory of resource scarcity. It is the position of this paper that environmental variability in West African and the Sahel has given rise to the manifestation of conflicts and insecurities. The farmers-herders conflict, banditry, Niger Delta conflict, trans-border crimes, insecurity in the Lake Chad Basin, etc are instances of environmentally induced crises. It recommends, among other things, the need for countries in West Africa and the Sahel to put in place early warning systems and strategies to check environmental degradation.