Abuja, Nigeria – In December 2025, Burkina Faso detained 11 Nigerian Air Force personnel after their C-130 transport plane made an emergency touchdown in Bobo-Dioulasso whereas travelling to Portugal for scheduled upkeep.
Burkina Faso mentioned the plane had entered its airspace with out the required authorisation, whereas Nigerian officers mentioned the touchdown adopted a technical downside. The Nigerian Air Force mentioned the precautionary touchdown was made in accordance with security procedures. The plane and its 11-member crew had been launched following diplomatic talks on December 17. They departed Burkina Faso two days later, persevering with their journey to Portugal through Ghana.
The incident underscored the widening political divide between Nigeria and the three Sahelian nations of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
The three nations fashioned the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in September 2023 by way of the Liptako-Gourma Charter, establishing a framework for collective defence and mutual help. They later withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional bloc created to advertise financial integration and cooperation in West Africa. Their withdrawal turned efficient on January 29, 2025.
Bolaji Akinyemi, a professor and former exterior affairs minister of Nigeria and director-general of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, advised Al Jazeera that the area’s present security challenges can partly be traced to the aftermath of the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011.
“The influx of bandits from the AES into Nigeria is something that had been ongoing since Gaddafi was overthrown. There was no doubt the suspicion as to where the bandits would go. They couldn’t go across the Mediterranean. They could only come down south. This made Nigeria a target.”
“I hope that it will not go beyond where it has gone so far. I hope that good sense and diplomacy will allow these four countries to show maturity,” Akinyemi added.
Security threats cross the borders
The dispute comes as security threats dealing with Nigeria and its Sahelian neighbours proceed to overlap.
Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) stay energetic in Nigeria, whereas ISWAP additionally operates in southeastern Niger, notably in the Diffa area.
Niger withdrew from the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) in March 2025, the regional drive created to combat armed teams round the Lake Chad Basin. Niger’s authorities mentioned the transfer was aimed toward strengthening security round its oil belongings.
Abiola Sadiq, a Nigerian resilience adviser, advised Al Jazeera that Niger’s withdrawal had created a big hole in regional counterterrorism cooperation and cross-border coordination.
“With ISWAP remaining active in southeastern Niger, particularly in the Diffa region, Niger’s withdrawal from the Multinational Joint Task Force in 2025 has further created a significant gap in regional counterterrorism cooperation and cross-border coordination,” Sadiq mentioned.
![Schoolchildren displaced by armed group attacks attend a class in Dori, Burkina Faso. The impact of insecurity continues to be felt across the Sahel as armed groups exploit regional security gaps [Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/2020-11-30T000000Z_270973754_RC2VDK9UOM2I_RTRMADP_3_BURKINA-SECURITY-SCHOOL.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80)
He warned that the deterioration in relations between Nigeria and the AES might give ISWAP higher freedom to use border areas and transfer personnel and sources throughout poorly coordinated security zones.
Nigeria shares an extended northern frontier with Niger. Borno and Yobe states border Niger in the northeast, whereas Sokoto and Katsina lie additional west alongside the frontier.
The security image is equally fluid additional west.
On April 25, 2026, coordinated assaults focused a number of places in Mali. Defence Minister Sadio Camara was killed in an assault on his residence in Kati, close to Bamako, in line with Mali’s authorities and Reuters. The assaults concerned al-Qaeda-linked Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), which later claimed joint duty.
Reuters described the cooperation between the two teams as uncommon, given their totally different targets and frequent opposition to Mali’s army authorities.
Trade caught in the center
The political rupture has additionally left questions over commerce and motion.
Nigeria is West Africa’s largest financial system and a key marketplace for items transferring by way of the Sahel hall. Nigeria and the three AES states additionally share established patterns of cross-border commerce and labour migration.
When Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger’s withdrawal from ECOWAS took impact on January 29, 2025, the regional bloc mentioned it could search to keep away from disruption to commerce and motion whereas the future phrases of its relationship with the three nations had been decided.
ECOWAS mentioned residents of the three nations would proceed, till additional discover, to get pleasure from visa-free motion, residence and institution inside the ECOWAS area. It additionally mentioned items and companies from the three nations would proceed to be handled beneath current regional commerce preparations.
For merchants, transport operators and employees, the uncertainty surrounds how simply items and individuals can proceed to maneuver throughout borders, and beneath what guidelines.
A widening divide
The newest diplomatic dispute adopted remarks by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu on July 30 about the security state of affairs in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Tinubu mentioned the lack of security in the three nations had compounded Nigeria’s personal security challenges. The three AES governments subsequently rejected the evaluation.
In response, Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore met Nigeria’s cost d’affaires in Ouagadougou, with representatives of Mali and Niger additionally current. Traore mentioned the three AES nations and Nigeria confronted the identical security risk and criticised what he described as an excessively simplistic evaluation of the state of affairs.
A Malian worldwide relations analyst, who requested anonymity, advised Al Jazeera that successive confrontations had hardened positions.
“Each new flashpoint, from the 2023 sanctions threat to the December 2025 aircraft detention to this month’s exchange over cross-border blame, has hardened positions rather than softened them,” the analyst mentioned.
The analyst warned that except Abuja and the Sahelian capitals discovered a channel that might survive their political disagreements, armed teams working throughout the Liptako-Gourma area and into northern Nigeria might exploit the widening divide.
Liptako-Gourma is the space the place the borders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger meet.
Nigeria and the three AES states have moved additional aside politically. Yet the threats confronting them stay deeply interconnected.
Fighter teams don’t recognise the political boundaries separating Nigeria from its Sahelian neighbours. JNIM and ISWAP function throughout nationwide borders, whereas weak coordination can create alternatives for armed teams to use gaps between security zones.
Nigeria and the AES states have subsequently change into politically divided over a security risk that continues to be basically transnational.
“The result is a West Africa splitting into two security architectures that do not talk to each other, even as the threat they both face becomes more transnational by the month,” the analyst mentioned.