President Bola Tinubu has called on the African Union Peace and Security Council to establish a unified maritime task force to improve security in the Gulf of Guinea, the nerve centre of transnational organised crime at sea. He also stated that Nigeria was ready to host the headquarters of the task force in Lagos. Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, conveyed the Nigerian President’s position at the 38th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Sunday 16 February 2025.
Under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu, the Nigerian federal government has proposed to the African Union the establishment of a new security force to safeguard the waters off the coast of West Africa, also known as the Gulf of Guinea. He wants Lagos, the nation’s most populous city and economic hub, to become the headquarters of the force. This was stated by Yusuf Tuggar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs who represented Tinubu at a meeting of the African Union (AU) in Ethiopia on February 16 2025.
“This is not the first time that the President of Nigeria has mentioned the creation of a military force to secure the Gulf of Guinea area. Already a year ago, he had urged the support of the Economic Community of Central Africa, but also of West Africa, precisely for the establishment of this force to secure this area. And today what has changed is the level at which the Nigerian President spoke, no longer at local level but at the headquarters of the African Union.”
Boubacar Ba, Journalist – Senegal
Nigeria also strengthened its role in African security by signing a major agreement with the AU on the same day. The agreement commits the Nigerian navy to providing vessels for peace operations, natural disaster response, humanitarian aid and personnel transport, with the AU bearing the costs.
“The aim is very simple: to protect the interests of Nigeria, which shares a common border with Equatorial Guinea, and therefore has extremely important economic interests in offshore oil exploitation. So they need the support of African countries to supposedly secure an area which, it’s true, suffers from a lot of crime.”
Boubacar Ba, Journalist – Senegal
The Gulf of Guinea, which stretches from Senegal to Angola, has become the third high-risk maritime zone, along with South-East Asia and the Gulf of Aden. The Niger Delta is the epicentre of organised transnational crime at sea. In 2024, 340 acts of maritime piracy and banditry were reported, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
