Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo delivered a sweeping address at the third Mashariki Cooperation Conference (MCC III), calling on African intelligence chiefs and security leaders to confront the continent’s deepening geopolitical vulnerabilities with a radically reimagined security framework rooted in accountable governance, continental solidarity, and technological sovereignty.
Speaking on the theme “Emerging Geopolitical Dynamics and Africa’s Security Architecture,” Obasanjo drew on more than six decades of experience as soldier, statesman, and mediator to argue that Africa’s conflicts are not inevitable but the direct result of leadership failures and external manipulation.
“We are witnessing the fracturing of the post-1945 multilateral order,” he told delegates. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine… and the international community’s deeply inconsistent response to conflicts from Gaza to the Sahel have demonstrated that the rules-based international order is applied selectively.”
The former president painted a stark picture of a “new scramble for Africa,” citing China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Russian proxy forces operating across the Sahel and Horn of Africa, and the expulsion of French forces that left security vacuums quickly filled by others. He warned that terrorism, violent extremism, and a “coup epidemic” since 2020 have compounded the crisis.
Obasanjo offered five concrete propositions for a new African security architecture:
Primacy of the human being – placing ordinary citizens, not elites, at the centre of security policy.
Genuine continental solidarity and interoperability – fully resourcing the African Standby Force and Continental Early Warning System.
Confronting the financing of insecurity, with intelligence agencies leading the fight against illicit financial flows that dwarf official budgets.
Technological sovereignty – developing African-owned capabilities in AI, cyber, and drone warfare rather than depending on foreign systems.
Accountable governance – the indispensable foundation without which no security strategy can succeed.
The 89-year-old statesman, who turns 90 this year, repeatedly returned to the indispensable role of intelligence. “Intelligence is indispensable to conflict prevention… and woefully underused,” he said, citing early warning signs that were ignored in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, the DRC, and Sudan. He urged Africa’s intelligence services to create “a continental intelligence community worthy of the name,” beginning at the regional level.
Obasanjo did not shy away from self-reflection.
He recounted Nigeria’s pivotal role in Zimbabwe’s independence, ECOMOG interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, his chairmanship of the Arusha peace process in Burundi, and mediation efforts in the DRC and Zimbabwe. In each case, he said, success hinged on accurate intelligence, courageous honesty, and leadership willing to subordinate personal power to the common good.
He introduced, for the first time in this forum, his “Obasanjo 55+20 Leadership Framework” – 55 measurable attributes and 20 core values for transformational leadership – describing it as a practical instrument forged in the crucible of African conflict resolution. Among the most critical attributes, he said, is “courageous honesty” – the willingness to speak truth to both allies and adversaries.
Addressing the intelligence chiefs directly, Obasanjo declared: “Intelligence services that operate with integrity… that are genuinely subordinate to civilian authority… are not weaker services. They are stronger ones.”
The address was delivered to an audience that included Director General Noordin Mohamed Haji of Kenya’s National Intelligence Service and heads of intelligence agencies from across Africa and beyond. Organisers described MCC III as one of the continent’s most influential closed-door forums on security and statecraft.
Obasanjo closed with a personal note and a challenge: “I am going to be 90 years of age. I have seen Africa at its most hopeful and at its most despairing… Africa’s conflicts are not inevitable. They are the product of specific, identifiable failures of leadership… What is required is the will to do it and the courage and audacity to get it done.”
