Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, has called on African nations to stop being mere consumers of technology and instead become innovators and owners of the tools needed to secure the continent’s future.
He made this charge during the African Chiefs of Defence Staff Summit, a three-day meeting held at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, Abuja, from August 25 to 27, 2025. The gathering, themed “Combating Contemporary Threats to Regional and Security in Africa: The Role of Strategic Defence Collaboration,” brought together representatives from 54 African countries.
Shettima emphasized the importance of cyber defence, stressing that Africa faces “asymmetric, digital, and often invisible” security challenges. He also urged stronger collaboration between governments and the private sector in building sustainable defence systems.
“The future of Africa depends on the choices we make today. Let us rise above division and embrace cooperation. Let us imagine and build an Africa where peace is not an exception but the norm,” he said.
The Vice President also called for unity as the foundation of Africa’s security framework, adding that Nigeria will continue to play its role as “a good neighbour and brother’s keeper” through peacekeeping missions, counterterrorism efforts, and humanitarian interventions.
Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, explained that the summit was crucial since insurgents do not recognize borders. “We gatz work as a team, as neighbours to deal with these threats. This summit will help us develop a strategy that benefits all of us,” he said.
Former Nigerian Chief of Staff, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, gave a stark warning, revealing that over 1,000 insurgency groups currently operate across Africa. He urged nations to secure their borders before attempting continental interventions.
“We now have over 1,000 insurgency groups in Africa, and the number keeps rising. Our regional economic commissions must do more than economic integration; they should address banditry, terrorism, and insurgency,” Gambari noted.
He further called on African leaders to strengthen their defence industries, reduce dependence on foreign powers, and embrace the late Kwame Nkrumah’s vision of pan-African strategic defence cooperation.
Despite African Union efforts under the Agenda 2063 framework, which aimed to “silence the guns” by 2020 (later shifted to 2030), violent conflicts remain widespread in Sudan, South Sudan, the Sahel, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Southern Africa.
The summit, therefore, underscored the urgency of a coordinated continental defence strategy, intelligence sharing, and stronger regional cooperation to tackle terrorism, cybercrime, piracy, and transnational crime networks threatening Africa’s stability.