Security and Intelligence Challenges in Guinea-Bissau, Africa’s Narco-State and Issues Beyond Borders
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Date
2021-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal
Abstract
This paper focuses on the international security concerns in relation to the
disquiets in the tiny West African state, Guinea-Bissau since independence. The
country famously known as “narco-state” faces formidable challenges with weak
governance negatively impacting on intelligence services. Intelligence and security
reform is a building block of democracy, but this has been habitually weakened in
Guinea-Bissau during the last four decades. The state remains one of the most
fragile nations in the world having had its security culture totally perturbed,
occasioned by the military rule since independence from Portugal in 1974. With
over nine coup d’états that have been staged with a number of state administrations
toppled coupled with an avalanche of internal conflicts, and prevalence of
transnational phenomena (cocaine trafficking), and other traditional state-based
challenges, the African narco-state has been left with a very weak governance
structure, security, and intelligence services. The study examines Guinea-Bissau’s
intelligence culture drawing from secondary sources to understand how
intelligence has been shaped and how intelligence has influenced the country in the
context of poverty and authoritarianism. The study examines the various factors
that have shaped the state’s intelligence, analyzing the transformation and reform
in the state’s defense and security sector. It provides recommendations so the
Bissau-Guinean intelligence community can be more effective. This study uses
secondary sources and makes use of descriptive and content analyses techniques.
Description
Staff Publication
Keywords
International Security,, Intelligence community,, Narco-state,, Guinea-Bissau,, Africa.
Citation
Abiodun, T. F., & Fajimbola, J. O. (2021). Security and Intelligence Challenges in Guinea-Bissau, Africa’s Narco-State and Issues Beyond Borders. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(6). 71-82.