In his compelling yet controversial autobiography, ‘A Journey in Service’, former Nigerian head of state Ibrahim Babangida revisits a haunting chapter in West African history: the Liberian civil war.
More than three decades after the violence that claimed countless lives and upended a nation, Babangida shines a light on the complex interplay of regional dynamics, leadership failures, and the ambiguous role of global powers.
He reflects on the inadequacies of Samuel Doe’s leadership, the ruthless ambition of Charles Taylor, and the broader implications of West African unity during times of crisis. Through his eyes as a former Chairman of ECOWAS, Babangida recounts his pivotal decision to intervene militarily in Liberia—a choice he says was driven not by self-interest, but by an urgent desire to restore order and humanitarian relief.
With a keen sense of responsibility for a geographically and historically intertwined region, he navigates the treacherous waters of conflict resolution, shedding light on lessons learned and the enduring challenge of fostering peace and democracy in the aftermath of chaos.
“The internal political and historical complexities that produced the Liberian crisis were too nasty to engage our attention,” Babangida writes:
The Liberian Tragedy and ECOMOG
THE OUTBREAK OF hostilities in Liberia tested some of my fundamental assumptions about African unity and sovereign nationhood. Over the years, I observed that in situations where African states were enmeshed in internal crises or inter-African conflicts with enormous human and humanitarian costs, the rest of the world was often indifferent, except some nations had direct national interests involved.
Yet, the OAU charter adopted the Westphalian principle of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, even though clear clauses allowed for arbitration, intervention and mediation in each other’s internal problems.
I disagreed that stronger African countries with the necessary resources should stand idly by while weaker neighbours wallowed in self–destruction or adversity. As I watched the Liberian situation degenerate into a carnage that had consumed a fellow African country in an avoidable civil war, I felt a compulsion to use the mechanism of ECOWAS to intervene in the Liberian crisis, which had degenerated into a bloody civil war.
The casualties of both Liberians and other West Africans were mounting by the day. Law and order had been lost while the contenders for power supremacy were consumed in a contest for just power. As a three term Chairman of ECOWAS, I urged my colleagues to agree to set up a mediation mechanism with a monitoring mechanism that had a military capability to enforce the will of the sub-regional body.
This led to the setting up of ECOMOG as a monitoring and enforcement mechanism. The internal political and historical complexities that produced the Liberian crisis were too nasty to engage our attention.
What was straightforward was the clear responsibility of ECOWAS’s regional authority to intervene to seek to restore order, save lives, ameliorate the humanitarian disaster, and stabilise the strategic equilibrium of the West African sub-region.
When we decided to intervene militarily in Liberia, some observers misinterpreted it as an attempt to save Samuel Doe, which was far from it. I was fully aware that Doe was an obstacle to peace. He was bitterly divisive and was detested by key political figures in Liberia.
But he was still in power. We needed to convince him to extract himself from the scene for peace to reign. But we needed to combine political pressure and an appeal to his self-interest. I often spoke with Doe about the need for a more negotiated crisis resolution to enable a political solution.
Unfortunately, Doe was too inexperienced to understand the complexity of the situation he found himself in. He seemed more interested in clinging to power even though he had largely lost his hold on power. In the ensuing confusion, he came to a gruesome end.
All that we could do was to extract his assailant, Yormie Johnson, from the Liberia scene and grant him temporary exile in Nigeria for saner Liberians to proceed with the task of the political resolution of the conflict. But our commitment to peace in Liberia aimed to restore order and end the bloodletting and humanitarian disasters enveloping the country.
The ECOMOG intervention was in pursuit of these larger objectives. We intervened and stabilised the situation. Hostile forces like Charles Taylor were isolated and stopped in their tracks. In pursuit of these objectives, I must acknowledge the singular support of my friend, President Jerry Rawlings.
He shared my vision of regional stability and the responsibility of countries like Ghana and Nigeria, which had the resources and stature to act as agents of stability in the sub-region. His military background was an asset in 189 A Journey In Service the operational aspect of the ECOMOG. From a narrow national interest perspective, I saw a role for Nigeria in stabilizing the sub-regional neighborhood through the Liberian challenge.
More immediately, there were Nigerians held hostage by the warring factions in Liberia. Some, including two journalists, had already been killed by Charles Taylor’s troops, and this heightened the anxiety among Nigerians at home for us to intervene. Our citizens at home expected the government to act to mitigate the distress of our citizens still in Liberia. There was a consensus in most of West Africa that Nigeria was in a unique position to solve the problem.
Nigeria was the one country in the sub-region with the relevant demographics, human and material resources, as well as military experience and capability to save the sub-region in the light of the lack of interest on the part of major nations of the world at the time. T he end of the Cold War diverted the attention of major Western countries from crises and conflicts in parts of Africa.
The United States, whose direct interest Liberia was, occupied centre stage in the drama and consequences of the end of the Cold War. As it were, history had thrust on Nigeria a responsibility to look out for our neighbours in the face of a self-inflicted political and economic crisis. It was Nigeria’s moment, and we seized it, converting adversity into national success.
As a leader, I have always believed that national power is meaningless if it cannot be projected to stabilise the nation’s immediate neighbourhood. Liberia allowed our administration to do two noble things simultaneously: restore peace in a neighbouring country in difficulty and project our national power in an area of immediate national influence.
Either way, the Liberian crisis fitted into our administration’s original foreign policy intent and template. Nigeria must act in a manner that cannot be ignored in Africa and the world. I added a personal military dictum to the Liberian operation: intervene when necessary, ensuring that the outcome is militarily edifying and advancing the national interest. 190 Towards a Dynamic Foreign Policy We may not have resolved the Liberian crisis when our tenure ended in 1993.
But we had laid the foundation for the return of peace, order and democracy in that country. Above all, we had primarily ensured that the resolution of the Liberian crisis would not be achieved on the battlefield. Our message was clear: those interested in contesting for power in Liberia should seek peaceful means.
The administrations after ours retained the ECOMOG initiative and used it as a basis for the complete resolution of the crisis and the eventual return of democracy and democratic order to Liberia.
Nigeria even had the responsibility of training and equipping a new Liberian national military force at the end of hostilities. Even today, on reflection, I have watched the return of peace and order to Liberia, a thriving democracy, with pride. I remain glad that we took that decisive step to the glory of our fatherland.
