Racism in the Sahel and the Intelligence Gaps Fueling Terrorism

The ideological battlegrounds of northern Nigeria are disintegrating into a shadow war of self-interest, racial hierarchies, and fragmented loyalties. Once defined by rigid command structures, today’s extremist threat is unrecognised, more volatile, decentralised, and shaped by trauma, greed, and chaos spreading in the Sahel.

Nowhere is this transformation more visible than in the Lake Chad and northwestern corridors, where fighters once bound by allegiance to leaders like Abubakar Shekau now operate as scattered cells, many with no allegiance beyond the immediate spoils of violence. After Shekau’s brutal demise in 2021 at the hands of ISWAP, his loyalists either vanished into civilian communities or re-emerged under new, hyper-localised identities in places like Zamfara, Niger, and Kogi, and they are now emerging in large numbers in Plateau State. Without a central ideology or external coordination, many of these cells have adopted a hybrid identity: part insurgent, part bandit, part mercenary. They extract taxes, conduct kidnappings, and mete out selective justice on communities, not in service of any doctrinal purity, but to retain control and fear.

In the face of racism and setbacks, two jihadists fight on

Deep within Sahelian jihadist networks lies a festering problem rarely acknowledged publicly: the racism faced by Black African fighters at the hands of their Arab and Tuareg counterparts. Slurs like Sammara (slave) or Zool are commonplace within militant camps in Libya, Algeria, Mali, and Niger, echoing the same historical contempt that fueled slave routes centuries ago. For many sub-Saharan fighters, these insults are more than rhetorical. They are reminders that in the eyes of their comrades, they remain expendable.

Two former foreign fighters, now back on the frontlines of northwestern Nigeria, spoke exclusively to HumAngle through an intermediary. “Internal rifts and betrayals amongst mujahideen have made collective operations against their enemies near-impossible,” said Abu Maryam. Now isolated, Abu Maryam and three of his friends navigate the perilous landscape of northwest Nigeria, drifting from one group after another.

He left Libya after he could no longer tolerate the racial slurs. “No matter how good you are, if you are fighting among Arab fighters, you are likely to remain a Jundun bila rutba (a soldier without a rank), with rare chances of growing through the ranks to become a Munzir or Ka’id (senior members of military wings),” he said. “I have seen several dark-skinned brothers like me, and on some occasions, they have called me Sammara.”

Abu Maryam left the Fezzan region of Libya in 2022, after spending two and a half years there, because he experienced racial slurs and saw no effort to address the problem. “I had previously lived in Mali, so I didn’t stay there; I came straight to Bosso in Lake Chad to fight alongside fellow mujahideen of ISWAP.” He noted that with ISWAP, fighters initially had a strong bond. However, hatred emerged among brothers who once fought alongside each other but disagreed only on doctrine yet chose violence instead of dialogue to settle their differences. “There was an obsession to control everyone, which was unbearable for me. While I don’t like some Arabs because of racial discrimination, they are not intoxicated with power like I have seen in Lake Chad.”

Another Jihadist interviewed for this article, who gave his name only as Ibrahima, said he was a victim of racial discrimination in his home country of Niger, specifically in the desert of Agadez. He fought alongside some Tuaregs associated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. He did not provide many details about his past; it’s likely Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). He left shortly after and joined ISWAP in early 2022, where he met Abu Maryam. The two bonded quickly because of their similar Hausa and Arabic dialects and experiences as mid-ranking fighters. As fate would have it, both later defected along with a group of fighters and are now reportedly operating in Sokoto.

“We are not aligned with ISWAP since we left our Mubaya’a without permission, and now that we are fighting without a caliph, it makes our Jihad incomplete,” he said.

According to Abu Maryam, ISWAP in Lake Chad is the most organised among all the groups he fought alongside since 2019, when he chose the path of violence as an expression of his religious beliefs. However, constant leadership feuds and disproportionate punishments in ISWAP, such as death or imprisonment for merely possessing a mobile phone or transistor radio, drove them away. “This is why we left,” Abu Maryam said, “because punishment for every wrongdoing must adhere to the provisions of Sharia.”

“We were fighting for justice, but all I found in Agadez was bigotry. Here [referring to ISWAP], it’s no better; leaders fight over money and control. I’m done for now. I’ll wait until I find a cause, a leader worth following,” Ibrahima confessed.

A close observer of Nigeria’s conflict landscape highlighted a significant oversight in Nigeria’s counter-violent extremism program. He noted that the programme failed to exploit certain vulnerabilities among the insurgents, which could have been leveraged to further fracture their ranks. Regrettably, individuals such as Abu Maryam and Ibrahima did not participate in the federal government’s various deradicalisation initiatives. Instead, they have aligned with numerous other fighters, establishing new fronts and forming small, dispersed criminal gangs that are increasingly becoming difficult to track and contain.

Local authorities have the potential to exploit these racial tensions by sending targeted messages, promoting defections, and cultivating distrust among various factions and individuals. A good example of this is the brilliant manner in which Nigerian intelligence capitalised on the demise of Abubakar Shekau to create a pathway for thousands of Boko Haram defectors and residents within their sphere of influence to leave. The extended olive branch was so inviting that it even drew in members from opposing factions, like ISWAP.

The deep roots of racism against Sub-Saharan Africans

This longstanding prejudice against Black Africans has manifested in various forms over centuries, reflecting broader societal attitudes and systemic inequalities that persist to date.

In the 1880s, the Mahdist State in Sudan emerged as an anti-colonial religious movement. However, the regime implemented racial distinctions, creating a divide between the Nile Valley Arabs and the Black Africans. The Black skin fighters, despite their crucial role in military campaigns, remained marginalised in matters of governance and spiritual leadership.

In the context of Libya’s ongoing civil war, sub-Saharan migrants have reported severe racial profiling. A slogan that praises rebel fighters for purging Black slaves was boldly written on a poster in Misrata during the fighting that toppled and killed Libya’s former leader, Muammar Gaddafi. 

Black African fighters from Mauritania, Mali, and Niger, who are part of AQIM and its associated groups, have consistently expressed concerns about their treatment as disposable combatants. The leadership landscape there is predominantly characterised by Arab or Tuareg fighters. Numerous accounts from defectors over the years lend support to the lived experiences of Abu Maryam and Ibrahima.

The internal divisions within JNIM in Mali and Burkina Faso highlight a complicated relationship that includes doctrinal disagreements alongside underlying tensions between Tuareg leadership and Black African foot soldiers. This dynamic has resulted in Bambara, Songhai, and Hausa fighters experiencing discrimination, according to multiple accounts.

Additionally, despite ISIS’s claims of a worldwide recruitment initiative, Black African fighters were either absent from their propaganda videos or not placed in leadership roles during the peak of their operations in Iraq and Syria. Numerous fighters from Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan have expressed concerns regarding racial isolation and a tendency to be assigned to high-risk missions at a disproportionate rate.

Systemic flaws crippling Nigeria’s counter-terrorism: Data, Identity, and Borders

Nigeria’s failure to consolidate and enforce a unified national biometric database means the state cannot verify who resides within its borders nor who crosses them. This void undermines virtually every aspect of counter-terrorism: Suspects can acquire dozens of SIM cards under false identities or without registration. Although Nigeria mandates NIN-SIM linkage, enforcement remains poor. Criminals discard and switch phones with ease, evading tracking and surveillance. There is no interoperable system linking national ID, voter registration, police records, immigration, and telecom data. Such information makes cross-checking identities across institutions impossible. 

Fighters from Mali, Niger, and Cameroon move freely into Nigeria through routes like the Illela–Birnin Konni axis, the Damasak–Diffa corridor, and the Baga–Lake Chad region. Intelligence gathering and sharing remain fragmented across agencies like DSS, NIA, police, and military. Without a unified database or command structure, actionable intelligence about suspects’ movements, aliases, and contacts is often lost or buried in bureaucracy.

Aside from the borders, even city centres remain porous. In one instance, a former captive reportedly encountered one of his terrorist captors in a mosque in Kaduna. In another, fighters were reported by HumAngle to have evaded official radicalisation programmes by the government and are living normal lives in communities they once referred to as Darul Kufr (land of disbelievers), where they once killed such residents at will.

HumAngle’s continuous investigations in Nigeria and West Africa have shown that former Boko Haram fighters who have not migrated to new battle zones or participated in government deradicalisation programs now work as mechanics, artisans, and market vendors, with some even becoming Uber drivers in major cities.

The reasons some of these fighters gave HumAngle for abandoning local groups are similar to the accounts of Abu Maryam and Ibrahima in the Maghreb. Ethnic tensions remain a major obstacle to cohesion within local armed groups in Nigeria. After the death of Boko Haram leader Shekau, efforts to centralise leadership faltered, partly because some of the commanders considered most eligible were non-Kanuri, highlighting deep-seated tribal divisions.

Within ISWAP, non-Kanuri fighters have also complained of exclusion from key meetings that were mainly conducted in Kanuri. In the northwest, Fulani-dominated groups are similarly resistant to outside leadership. These dynamics reveal how ethnicity continues to shape power and loyalty more than ideology.

In a nation lacking a comprehensive database and where obtaining a SIM card is as straightforward as purchasing a bus ticket, tracking communications and migration of terrorists and other criminals have become a formidable challenge. Fighters exploit Nigeria’s digital opacity, activating and discarding phone numbers at will. Law enforcement, often under-equipped and under-trained, chases shadows across digital landscapes they can neither map nor monitor.

The result is a security architecture built on guesswork. Analysts and security forces continue to lump diverse threats under the blanket term “Boko Haram”. In southern Nigeria, nearly all kidnappers are classified as “Fulani herders”, failing to distinguish between ideological cells, rogue vigilantes, ethnic militias, and survivalist criminal gangs. It also feeds ethnic profiling in northern Nigeria, as observed by several HumAngle reports. 

Yusuf Anka, an award-winning former conflict reporter in northwest Nigeria, said, “If Fulanis are negatively profiled in the north, imagine what their experience in southern Nigeria could be.” The costs of this misdiagnosis have been misdirected airstrikes, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances, and a loss of trust with communities that could otherwise assist intelligence efforts in containing the problem.

From Mali to Borno, from Libya to Zamfara, what we are witnessing is a continental contagion, a pattern of fragmentation, racial tension, and decentralised violence. Terrorism and violent crime threats have gone from coordinated ideology to disjointed insurgency and criminal networks. And Nigeria is now one of its most combustible frontlines.