Beyond “Religious Conflict”: International Legitimacy of Secessionist Movements in Africa

Abstract

The ultimate goal of the secession movements is to gain recognition in accordance with international law, thereby strengthening its legitimacy on the international stage. The intensity of the conflict influences the likelihood of the movement being addressed within the framework of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) discourses, thereby shaping its international legitimacy. This article examines how the international legitimacy of secession movements is shaped by conflict profiles, religious significance and the CVE framework. Moving beyond the tendency to treat long-standing separatist conflicts as inherently religious, religion can enter separatist conflicts in various ways, such as being an indicator of collective differentiation, a language of mobilization, a source of symbolic legitimacy or an external framework of interpretation. In this study, international legitimacy is conceptualized as existing beyond formal recognition and is assessed using four indicators: discursive, diplomatic, institutional and support-based legitimacy. Five African case studies (Western Sahara, Cabinda, Biafra, Azawad and Ogaden) are detailed within the context of these indicators, having been selected for sharing similar values regarding conflict based on variables derived from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). Ultimately, in the cases of Western Sahara and Azawad, associating religion with extremism undermines the legitimacy of separatist claims and restricts access to international policy and military support.

1. Introduction

In the 21st century, secessionist movements have become one of the greatest challenges facing African states striving to maintain stability and development. While these movements are often motivated by “grievances” related to self-determination, they are rarely understood solely in this context (Sorens 2012; Bartkus 2004; Collier and Hoeffler 2004). Instead, competing terminologies are used to interpret them, primarily by existing (host) states or internationally recognized states. These terminologies include ethnic or religious conflict, insurgency, terrorism, state fragility and, increasingly, violent extremism. Therefore, the international legitimacy of secession movements is shaped not only by their claims but also by how these are interpreted, classified and circulated by host states and external actors. Religion further complicates this field of interpretation. In some separatist contexts, religion is central to collective identity, whereas in others, it is secondary to territory, ethnicity or political exclusion (Hechter 1992). Even if religion is not a constitutive element of the separatist aim, it can reinforce social boundaries, moralize grievances, provide symbolic legitimacy and shape how the conflict is understood by external actors. Therefore, the political significance of religion alone does not justify classifying a conflict as religious. Instead, what matters is how religion becomes politically prominent within or around a separatist conflict and how this prominence might affect the international legitimacy of secession movements.

Although conflict, religious extremism and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) framework are considered to be independent variables in the study, the distinction between political aims, ideological intensity and tactical repertoires is emphasized. Recent research distinguishes between different types of extremism according to a group’s preferences or goals, while treating terrorism as a matter of actions or tactics rather than aims (Joyce and Fortna 2025). From this perspective, separatism should primarily be considered a political aim as it seeks to reorganize sovereignty, territory and political authority; however, it does not inherently prescribe a specific tactical repertoire. Therefore, terrorism should not automatically be evaluated in the same way as violent conflict. Similarly, religious extremism should not automatically be equated with violence. As Iannaccone and Berman (2006, p. 125) argue, religious extremism may increase the effectiveness of groups that embrace violence, but it does not necessarily increase the likelihood of these groups turning to militancy. In fact, many religious extremist groups reject violence altogether. However, although the broader CVE literature formally distinguishes between ideological extremism and violent behavior, in practice, the two are often conflated, with extremism and violence being treated interchangeably (Nasser-Eddine et al. 2011, p. 9). This shift has significant consequences for separatist conflicts. Even if secessionist movements are not inherently extremist in terms of their political objectives, they may increasingly be reframed through discourses of violent extremism by external actors, especially existing states, when their claims become entangled with broader concerns about religion, armed struggle, or instability.

When secession is understood as a political objective involving the restructuring of sovereignty, territory and political authority, secession movements may seem “extreme”. This is not because they are inherently violent, but because the extent of the change they seek affects the territorial and constitutional foundations of the status quo. Contemporary security discourses, particularly those advanced by existing states, often blur these distinctions. Under these conditions, movements that would otherwise be considered political claimants, challengers to colonial borders or national liberation projects may be repositioned as security threats instead. Therefore, the issue is not whether separatist conflicts are inherently religious, but how religion and the framework for combating violent extremism influence international positions. While literature on secession has traditionally focused on conflicts relating to recognition, statehood and territory, little attention has been given to the impact of external interpretation on the legitimacy of secession movements, even in the absence of recognition (Bartkus 2004; Sorens 2012; de Vries et al. 2019; Thomas and Falola 2020). Similarly, while an increasing number of studies are questioning the category of “religious conflict” and critical studies on CVE are highlighting the political impacts of security discourse, these studies rarely come together to provide sustained analyses of African secession movements (Bourekba 2021; Lindgren and Sonnenschein 2021). This article addresses this by examining how religious significance and the CVE framework interact to shape the international legitimacy of African separatist cases with similar conflict profiles. This study is built on the hypothesis that secessionist movements with comparable levels of conflict intensity will exhibit different levels of international legitimacy depending on how religion is politically framed and how these movements are interpreted within CVE discourses by external actors.

The article argues that the variation in the international legitimacy of secession movements cannot be explained by conflict intensity alone. It is more important to consider how religion gains political significance within or around a conflict, particularly in narratives advanced by existing states and external actors, and how these conflicts are subsequently recoded through CVE related security frameworks. The relationship between religion, security discourse and the international legitimacy of separatist claims is important here (that is, how actors position them). The study therefore focuses on five African secession movements selected from a broader case pool because they demonstrate similar values in conflict-related indicators obtained from the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme (UCDP): Western Sahara, Cabinda, Biafra, Azawad and Somali 2 (Ogaden). This shared conflict profile enables an examination of how differences in religious significance, frameworks for combating violent extremism and external interpretations correspond to different patterns of international legitimacy.

First, the article develops a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between secession movements, religion, and CVE frameworks. Second, it addresses international legitimacy as a graded and externally (by international actors) mediated condition beyond “recognition” between the two actors. Finally, it details selected case studies to demonstrate how movements with similar conflict profiles can yield different legitimacy outcomes when considering religious significance, security discourse, and how they are assessed by international actors.

2. Religious Conflict, Countering Violent Extremism Framing and Secessionist Movements

Secessionist movements should be understood as political projects that seek to reorganize sovereignty by detaching a territory and its population from an existing state, rather than simply as episodes of armed dissent. Classically, secession has been defined as the formal withdrawal of a constituent unit from a central political authority in pursuit of independent sovereign status (Wood 1981, p. 110) as an ethnic group’s attempt to remove its territory from the authority of a larger state (Horowitz 1992, p. 119); and as the creation of a new state without the predecessor state’s consent, often under conditions shaped by force or the threat of force (Crawford 2006, p. 375). According to Bartkus, secessionist movements typically rely on four fundamental elements: a distinct community, territory, leadership and grievances (Bartkus 2004, p. 10). The distinct community is especially important among these elements, since it provides the social basis through which the grievances that strengthen the movement become politically meaningful.

However, the constitution of such a distinct community is never purely given. As Hechter’s analysis of secessionist dynamics suggests, regional group identification depends on economic interests as well as shared cultural characteristics, such as language, religion, and culture (Hechter 1992). Therefore, religion is relevant to secessionist mobilization not only as a belief system, but also as a potential marker of collective difference, a source of symbolic cohesion and a means of strengthening the boundaries between the aspiring community and the existing state. In addition to serving broader forms of public activity such as granting symbolic legitimacy and moralizing political claims, religion has the potential to shape separatist projects through doctrine. Ultimately, religious narratives and symbols can enhance group solidarity and legitimize claims to political autonomy (Smith 1991). In this sense, religion can help to establish the distinct community needed for separatist mobilization, even when the separatist goal is primarily territorial or political rather than theological.

The political relevance of religion does not justify classifying a secessionist conflict as religious in itself. The presence of religious identity, discourse or symbolism may influence how a conflict is expressed and perceived, but this does not necessarily make religion its primary cause. This distinction is analytically important. Religion may function as a constitutive element of collective identity in some movements, as a language of mobilization or symbolic legitimization in others, and in other cases, it may be an external interpretative label imposed by states and outside actors. For this reason, the present study does not begin with the assumption that the selected cases are “religious conflicts” in any straightforward sense. Instead, it considers how religion enters each conflict and the role it plays within it.

This distinction is important in supporting the view that separatist claims should not automatically be equated with violent extremism, depending on how secession movements are defined. When considering these definitions, separatism should be understood as a political goal involving the restructuring of sovereignty, territory and political authority within the existing state structure. In this sense, separatist and irredentist movements may appear “extremist” not because they are inherently violent, but because the extent of the change they seek affects the territorial and constitutional foundations of the status quo. This interpretation aligns with recent work (Buhaug and Rød 2006; Joyce and Fortna 2025) which defines extremism not solely by behavior, but by how far a group’s preferences or goals deviate from the existing order. When extremism is distinguished in terms of a group’s preferences or goals and terrorism in terms of actions or tactics, secession movements may appear politically extremist because they aim to alter the territorial and constitutional foundations of the status quo. However, this does not mean that secession movements are inherently terrorist or more likely to use terrorism as a tactic than groups seeking autonomy. Similarly, religious extremism should not be mechanically equated with violence, since religiously extremist groups do not necessarily resort to militancy. As Iannaccone and Berman (2006, p. 125) emphasize, equating religious extremism with religious militancy is a serious error because many religious extremist groups reject violence entirely. Therefore, the analytical question is not whether secession movements are inherently extremist, but rather, how specific separatist projects become susceptible to this framing.

This is precisely why CVE is important. CVE formally distinguishes between ideological extremism and violence as a behavioral trait. In practice, however, extremism, radicalization, terrorism and the language of threat are often incorporated into a broader security lexicon that defines and reclassifies conflict (Nasser-Eddine et al. 2011, p. 9; Stephens et al. 2021, p. 347). This is particularly important for secession movements. As they challenge the territorial order of the state, they are vulnerable to reinterpretation through security-focused narratives, particularly when religious symbols are present within or around the movement. In such circumstances, demands for self-determination, autonomy, or political solutions may be translated into the language of violent extremism and threat.

This study examines the intersection between secessionist movements and frameworks for countering religious and violent extremism by stressing a crucial analytical distinction between political goals, ideological intensity, and violent tactics. Secession movements, particularly within the context of the existing state are increasingly being reinterpreted as violent extremist discourse when linked to broader concerns regarding religious rhetoric, armed struggle or political instability. However, it is important not to equate secession movements with violent extremism and terrorism. Indeed, research has shown that, even when their political goals are deemed maximalist from a regional or constitutional standpoint, separatist groups are less likely to employ terrorism as a tactic than groups seeking autonomy (Joyce and Fortna 2025). This article examines the relationship between separatism, religious and violent extremism based on the premise that contemporary security discourse is increasingly conflating demands for political autonomy with radicalization and terrorism. The central question is therefore not whether conflicts caused by secessionist movements are inherently religious, but how framing religion and CVE can reshape the international legitimacy of secessionist movements in different contexts of conflict and political recognition.

3. Defining International Legitimacy Beyond Recognition

The international legitimacy that secession movements seek to achieve by instrumentalizing conflict should not be reduced solely to legal recognition. In the early twentieth century, Oppenheim observed that the recognition of political entities generally depended more on the foreign policy strategies of the states making the recognition decision than on normative legal doctrine. Oppenheim clearly stated that the declaration or refusal of recognition is, more often than not, a matter of international politics rather than international law, noting that “history has recorded numerous instances of recognition that was long delayed” (Oppenheim 1905, p. 111). This view remains valid today, particularly when secession movements are assessed not only in terms of legal justifications but also in terms of strategic interests, regional order, and geopolitical priorities. In this sense, the concept of recognition possesses a dual structure legal in form but political in practice.

A state is not just an organized political structure within a society; it is also a unit that can acquire rights and obligations, and act as a subject of international law within the field of international relations. Therefore, statehood is related to whether the minimum qualifications developed within the framework of international law are present in the literature on state recognition. When the ultimate goal of a secessionist movement is to achieve and secure recognition as an independent state, its structural characteristics are closely linked to the core conditions of statehood. This connection stems from the movement’s claim to sovereignty and its aspiration to function as a legitimate political entity. Bartkus (2004, p. 10) states that the necessary factors for a secessionist movement to exist are a differentiated community, a region/space where there is a sense of belonging and the potential country of the new independent state that will emerge when the secessionist movement becomes independent, a leader of the movement, and dissatisfaction or complaints. Therefore, secessionist movements are political organizations that openly or covertly point to the possibility of an alternative sovereign order and are not only national liberation movements or insurgent formations. However, this study is not concerned with whether such movements meet the formal criteria of statehood or ultimately achieve sovereign recognition. Instead, it addresses the question of how they are interpreted, positioned and dealt with by external actors before or in the absence of recognition.

The distinction between international legitimacy and recognition is important because legitimacy is a broader concept than recognition. According to Franck (1988), legitimacy refers to being seen as “just and fair” or “accepted” as worthy of recognition beyond being practically effective. Based on this definition, this study treats international legitimacy as a graded variable influenced by external factors in the recognition process, rather than as a binary legal outcome. Accordingly, international legitimacy is defined as the extent to which a secession movement is perceived by international actors as a legitimate entity that is politically understandable, normatively defensible and diplomatically addressable, rather than primarily as a threat to security or regional order (Franck 1988).

This approach is particularly useful for assessing African separatist conflicts, where recognition under international law is rarely granted, but where international actors have different views on which claims deserve acceptance or support. As Coggins (2011) demonstrates, the future of “state candidates” seeking independence depends not only on de facto statehood or compliance with the Montevideo Convention, but also on whether powerful international actors recognize them as legitimate political actors. Recent studies on insurgent legitimacy emphasize that it should not be considered a fixed property, but rather a process of competence or disqualification shaped by discourse, relations and political practice (Duyvesteyn 2018). From this perspective, international legitimacy is not solely dependent on formal recognition. A secessionist movement may have a certain degree of external legitimacy without being recognized, and it may also remain largely delegitimized even when recognition becomes politically feasible.

Accordingly, this article distinguishes between international legitimacy and legal statehood, formal recognition and political success. A movement may fail to achieve recognition yet still be treated as a meaningful political interlocutor. Alternatively, it may be widely labelled as extremist or terrorist, thereby losing international legitimacy before recognition becomes a realistic possibility.

Indicators of International Legitimacy

The presence or absence of international legitimacy is the result of processes operating through discourse and institutions (Duyvesteyn 2018; Franck 1988). This study therefore examines the concept of international legitimacy analytically through four relevant indicators. Firstly, discursive legitimacy concerns how a separatist movement is named and defined by international actors. Whether a movement is framed as an actor seeking self-determination, a political representative or a party to a conflict, as opposed to a terrorist organization, extremist group or destabilizing actor, is not merely semantic. These labels determine whether the movement is viewed as a legitimate political claimant or an object of oppression or obstruction (Fabry 2010).

International actors can actively determine which entities are considered legitimate political actors and accept entities that meet the necessary criteria as states (Coggins 2011). The second indicator, diplomatic legitimacy, concerns the extent to which a movement is accepted as a political actor through formal or semi-formal contact, mediation or political dialogue. International legitimacy encompasses pre-existing and partial practices that enable political entities to become comprehensible and negotiable actors within the international arena.

Thirdly, institutional legitimacy emphasizes whether a movement is involved in recognized frameworks of negotiation, peace processes or other formal conflict management mechanisms. Institutional reach is important because it demonstrates that an actor possesses a degree of political status, even if they are not recognized as a sovereign entity. In this sense international legitimacy can be assessed as a matter of degree rather than as an all-or-nothing proposition, particularly when the secessionist movement engages in internationally recognized processes, even if it is not formally recognized (Caspersen 2015).

Finally, international legitimacy refers to the amount and origin of the political, material or military support that a movement receives from outside sources. This support should not be equated directly with legitimacy, as it may reflect the strategic or geopolitical interests of those involved. However, support-based legitimacy can serve as an indicator of whether a movement is politically understandable and actionable for external actors. Within the framework of the (All) Minorities at Risk/AMAR dataset, this article acknowledges the distinction between forms of political, material and military support from kinship groups, foreign states and state-led actors, and non-state actors, while identifying different forms of such support (All Minorities at Risk (AMAR/MAR) 2017). Although this dimension may partly overlap with diplomatic or institutional legitimacy, particularly with regard to political support, it is treated separately here. Because support-based legitimacy encompasses a broader spectrum of external backing, including sources and intensities that extend beyond formal engagement or institutional inclusion.

These categories are not used here to create a formal legitimacy index, but rather to demonstrate how external support can influence the external positioning of secession movements. These indicators enable us to move beyond a narrow, recognition-centered approach and examine legitimacy as a differentiated international condition. The following section outlines the main explanatory variables used in the comparative analysis: conflict profile, religious salience and CVE framing. These factors are used to assess how they shape the international legitimacy of selected secessionist movements.

Taken together, these indicators offer a framework through which to examine legitimacy as a variable outcome, shaped by the interaction between political claims and external interpretation, rather than as a fixed legal status. To account for this variation, the article turns to three recurring explanatory dimensions across the selected cases: conflict profile, religious salience and CVE-related framing extent. Taken together, these dimensions enable us to understand why some secessionist movements are recognized as political claimants in the international arena, while others are increasingly seen as security threats.

4. Comparative Case Analyses

Secession movements can be considered a form of regional conflict because they arise from disputes over territory and sovereignty, rather than from a desire for overall state control (Uppsala Conflict Data Program 2024). The relationship between secession movements and the existing states is examined using three indicators from the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme (UCDP), which records violent interactions between governments and organized groups. These indicators consider the historical development of the conflict and the intensity of the violence.

The first variable indicates whether the movement has engaged in armed conflict with the central government and reached a threshold of at least twenty-five war-related deaths in a calendar year. The second variable indicates whether the conflict has reached a high-intensity threshold, i.e., whether it has resulted in at least 1000 war-related deaths in at least one year. The third variable measures whether such a high-intensity conflict has occurred at any point in the last decade (Griffiths and Martinez 2021). When these criteria were applied to a broader pool of cases, five movements were identified that shared the same values in variables related to separatist conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa: Western Sahara (Morocco), Cabinda (Angola), Biafra (Nigeria), Azawad (Mali), and Somali 2/Ogaden (Ethiopia) (Uppsala Conflict Data Program 2024). For this reason, these cases were selected for closer examination, since their identical values on the conflict-related variables make it possible to hold conflict relatively constant and to observe more clearly how differences in religious salience, CVE framing, and external interpretation shape international legitimacy.

4.1. The Western Sahara Resistance: Anti-Colonial Secession Under Securitized Framing

Western Sahara, one of the longest-running conflicts on the African continent, is widely described as “Africa’s last colony.” This characterization reflects the fact that Western Sahara has remained on the United Nations (UN) list of Non-Self-Governing Territories since 1963, which places the conflict within the normative framework of decolonization rather than treating it simply as an ordinary secessionist dispute (United Nations 2017; Zunes and Mundy 2010, p. 12). Politically and geographically, Sahrawi identity extends beyond the territory of Western Sahara itself, yet the distinction between broader Sahrawi ethnocultural affiliation and the specifically indigenous Western Sahrawi population remains central to the conflict. Morocco has resisted the framing of the Sahrawis as an ethno-national collective with a distinct right to self-determination, preferring instead to subsume the territory into the Moroccan national body.

The 1975–1991 war consolidated this conflict in spatial as well as political terms. During the war, Morocco constructed a defensive wall, or berm, stretching roughly 2700 km, thereby dividing the territory and entrenching Moroccan control over the western portion of Western Sahara. This physical partition reinforced debates over whether the conflict should be understood as a case of secessionism or as the continuation of colonial domination under a new sovereign actor. The latter interpretation remains more convincing, since the unresolved status of the territory and the continued UN classification of Western Sahara as a “Non-Self-Governing Territory” point to an unfinished process of decolonization rather than a settled question of Moroccan sovereignty (United Nations 2017). In this regard, the Polisario Front’s claim has historically rested on anti-colonial self-determination rather than on religious mobilization.

What makes Western Sahara especially relevant for CVE framework and secession movements axis is the way in which the conflict has been progressively exposed to securitized and terrorist framing. Moroccan officials have repeatedly described Polisario operations in the language of terrorism and regional instability, particularly in the post-9/11 international environment, where the Sahara-Sahel increasingly came to be viewed through the lens of counterterrorism. As earlier analyses noted, the “war on terror” provided Morocco with an opportunity to recast the Western Sahara question from one of self-determination into one of security management, thereby reducing the international resonance of Polisario’s anti-colonial claim (Lecocq and Schrijver 2007). This does not mean that Western Sahara became a religious conflict in any substantive sense. Rather, it shows how a fundamentally political and decolonial claim can be reframed within a security discourse that associates armed resistance with terrorism, even where religion is not the constitutive principle of the movement itself.

This reframing has had important consequences for the international legitimacy of the Polisario Front. At the discursive level, Polisario has not been stripped entirely of legitimacy, since the conflict continues to be recognized in major legal and diplomatic arenas as an unresolved decolonization issue rather than a settled question of Moroccan territorial integrity. However, at the diplomatic level, the strongest influence in the conflict, which Morocco calls a “war on terror”, comes from the support of the United Kingdom and France (Camprubí 2015, p. 676). In addition to these two powerful actors with colonial histories, the United States (US) and Spain also appear to support Morocco’s position in the Western Sahara conflict due to their geopolitical plans for the region. The US announcement that it would recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for the normalization of relations with Israel, and Spain’s abandonment of its traditional neutrality in the conflict in 2022 to side with the Moroccan government, demonstrate this diplomatic support (Magid 2020).

At the institutional level, Polisario has nonetheless retained a degree of visibility and legal personality, as reflected in UN processes and in litigation before European courts concerning agreements applied to Western Sahara. Support-based legitimacy, meanwhile, has remained partial and unstable (Hilpold 2025). In their relations with Morocco, international actors have oscillated between two extremes, viewing the Western Sahara resistance as either a liberation movement or a terrorist threat (Kasraoui 2025; Riboua 2025). Consequently, Western Sahara is notable as a case in which a non-religious, anti-colonial claim has maintained some degree of normative legitimacy, despite being consistently undermined by a security-focused geopolitical narrative.

4.2. Cabinda: Resource Politics and Weak International Legitimacy

Despite limited international attention, the Cabinda secessionist movement has persisted for decades and remains one of the most distinctive separatist cases in Africa. What distinguishes Cabinda from many other secessionist movements on the continent is its geographical separation from the Angolan mainland, as the enclave is physically detached from the rest of Angola by a strip of territory belonging to the Democratic Republic of Congo. This geographical discontinuity has reinforced separatist narratives of political distinctiveness and enabled Cabindan actors to frame their claims not merely as regional dissent, but as a historically grounded struggle for self-determination. The roots of this argument lie in the colonial period: Cabinda was brought under Portuguese control through the Treaty of Simulambuco in 1885, and although it was later administratively linked to Angola, its earlier separate status remained central to Cabindan claims of distinct political identity (P. Martin 1977; Ojakorotu 2011). This historical trajectory also contributed to the consolidation of a distinct Cabindan political identity (J. Martin 2019, p. 211).

Cabinda’s separatist claim has therefore been shaped by the intersection of enclave geography, separate colonial memory, and resource politics (Catoto Capitango et al. 2022). The discovery and expansion of oil production transformed Cabinda into one of Angola’s most strategically valuable regions, while also deepening local grievances over extraction, exclusion, and unequal redistribution. A substantial share of Angola’s oil wealth has long been associated with Cabinda (OPEC 2022). Hovewer this concentration of natural resources did not translate into locally perceived inclusion or political recognition. Instead, the enclave became a paradigmatic example of how resource wealth can intensify separatist contention, particularly where local actors view the central state as appropriating wealth without offering meaningful autonomy or representation. In this sense, Cabinda is more convincingly read through the lenses of resource politics and enclave nationalism than through religious or ideological polarization (Frynas and Wood 2001; Ojakorotu 2011).

The conflict in Cabinda has not been defined primarily through religion, nor has it been strongly absorbed into the global vocabulary of religious extremism or Countering Violent Extremism. Although the Angolan state has at times described the armed activities of the Front for the Liberation of Cabinda (FLEC) in the language of terrorism and national security, the conflict has generally been framed in the literature as a low-visibility separatist struggle rooted in oil, state repression, and the political fragmentation of the movement rather than in jihadist ideology or sectarian mobilization (Ojakorotu 2011). Moreover, while religious institutions (especially the Catholic Church and Cabindan civic associations) have at times played an important role in supporting dialogue and articulating local grievances, this points to religion as a source of social mediation and civilian legitimacy, not as the constitutive basis of the separatist claim itself (Cil and Prorok 2020, p. 333).

For this reason, Cabinda is best understood as a case of weak international legitimacy without strong religious or CVE framing. At the discursive level, the movement has remained marginal in international debate and has not acquired the normative visibility associated with decolonization-based cases such as Western Sahara. At the diplomatic level, Cabindan actors have struggled to establish themselves as durable and credible interlocutors, in part because the movement has been fragmented and in part because major external actors have shown little willingness to challenge Luanda over such a strategically important oil-producing enclave. Institutionally, the 2006 Memorandum of Understanding did not produce robust or inclusive political recognition; rather, it exposed the limits of a settlement that failed to satisfy broader Cabindan constituencies, including church and civic actors (Cil and Prorok 2020). Support-based legitimacy has also remained weak, as external backing has been inconsistent and insufficient to transform the movement into a widely acknowledged political project. Cabinda therefore demonstrates that low international legitimacy does not always result from religious-extremist framing: in some cases, fragmented organization, resource politics, and low diplomatic visibility are sufficient to produce a similarly weak outcome.

4.3. Biafra: Ethno-Political Secession Under Religious Polarization

Existing scholarship emphasizes that Nigeria’s political trajectory has long been characterized by competing mobilizations of ethnic and religious groups, advancing demands that range from self-determination and regional autonomy to political dominance and secession (Obiukwu and Njoku 2024, p. 95). This diversity, based on religion, ethnicity, and culture, is cited as the cause of political crises throughout the country’s history (Joseph 1999, p. 360). Biafra represents one of the most consequential secessionist episodes in postcolonial Africa and remains central to debates on self-determination and political exclusion in Nigeria. The roots of the conflict lie in the colonial construction of Nigeria as a politically unified but deeply differentiated territory. British indirect rule produced markedly different administrative, educational, and legal trajectories in the north and south, reinforcing regional asymmetries that later shaped political competition after independence (Falola and Heaton 2008). In this sense, the Biafran crisis emerged from the tensions of an artificial postcolonial union, in which ethnic, regional, and political cleavages became increasingly difficult to contain within a centralized state structure.

Initially, the Northern and Muslim Hausa Fulanis demanded secession before Nigeria gained independence, despite representing the majority. This was because the Northern Muslim elite were not involved in public affairs due to their lack of Western education, and they were concerned about Southern Christians taking over the newly established government (Harnischfeger 2019, p. 332). The desire of the Northern Muslim Hausa Fulani to secede, which began in the 1950s, is related to British colonialism. This led to elites who were considered educated according to “European criteria” holding executive positions in the state. British indirect rule did not interfere with the administration of the emirates in northern Nigeria nor did it allow Christian missionary activities in the region. While English was adopted in the south, Hausa remained the administrative language in the north, where Sharia also continued as the dominant legal system. Northern Nigeria’s inability to sustain itself financially, combined with the British Colonial Office’s and Sir Frederick Lugard’s conviction that a centralized administration would ensure a more efficient allocation of resources, led to the unification of Nigeria (Falola and Heaton 2008, p. 116). By 1912, it had become clear that the political merger of northern and southern Nigeria was driven primarily by economic considerations, particularly the need to balance regional budgets. Unsurprisingly, this artificial union later gave rise to secessionist movements.

After independence, ethnic divisions were also apparent. As Abubakar Tafawa Balewa observed in reference to the 1914 amalgamation, Nigeria existed “only as a single nation on paper” and remained far from genuine unification, an assessment that continued to resonate in the post-independence period (Ikubanni and Alabi 2024, p. 41). In this context, northern authorities arrested opposition leaders and declared a state of emergency in Western Nigeria to weaken Awolowo’s Action Group and its Igbo allies. The Nigerian security forces acted as an “occupation army” for the Yoruba, which resulted in the Yoruba developing a secessionist movement in the West. Following the 1966 military coup led by Igbo and Yoruba officers, the new head of state, General Ironsi, decided to strengthen the center and make Nigeria a unitary state. This led to predictions that Igbo influence would be effective in administering the whole country (Harnischfeger 2019, p. 338).

On 6 July 1967, Biafra’s declaration of independence was rejected, and the region was subsequently occupied. To punish the rebels (the Biafrans) the ports were closed, cutting off the supply of food to densely populated areas. By the end of the civil war in 1970, nearly three million people had lost their lives, most of them from starvation in Eastern Nigeria (Harnischfeger 2019, p. 340). In addition, another three million people were displaced (Falola and Heaton 2008, p. 180). Despite the humanitarian catastrophe endured by the Igbo people, Ojukwu persisted in his secessionist claim in order to attract international attention and secure support for Biafra’s struggle for independence. His statement “From the beginning, our aim has been to delay the enemy until the world conscience is awakened against genocide” confirms this (Ojukwu 1981, p. 353). As in most secessionist cases on the continent, international actors (France, Portugal, Israel, the USSR, the Red Cross, and four African countries) ultimately sided with the territorial integrity. However, the literature strongly argues that such international involvement prolonged the civil war and exacerbated the humanitarian crisis (Falola and Heaton 2008, p. 178).

Historically, the Biafra case should not be understood as a religious conflict. The Biafra secessionist movement was driven by the political exclusion of the Igbo people, federal power struggles and the belief that the post-colonial Nigerian state could not ensure equal security and representation for the Eastern Region. The 1967 declaration of independence and the subsequent civil war were primarily driven by the pursuit of self-determination amid ethno-political exclusion and violence. At the same time, religion played a significant role in the broader Nigerian context in which these claims were made. The long-standing differentiation between the predominantly Muslim north and the largely Christian south, which was later intensified by the politics of Sharia law implementation in northern Nigeria, helped to deepen feelings of alienation in the southeast.

Igbo separatism re-emerged in the 2000s through the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), which had been established shortly before the rise of the Sharia movement in late 1999. MASSOB founder Ralph Uwazuruike stated that he would adopt a strategy of passive resistance and that Biafra would secede from Nigeria after a 25-stage process. Uwazuruike demonstrated the gradual separation from Nigeria through symbols such as the introduction of a currency, the Biafra Pound, which demonstrated national sovereignty; the issuance of passports in 2009; and the use of the flag, the previous symbol of Biafran separatism (Harnischfeger 2019, p. 349).

Igbo separatism later entered a new phase with the emergence of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), founded by Nnamdi Kanu in 2012. Unlike MASSOB’s earlier emphasis on symbolic separation and passive resistance, IPOB became a more visible and transnational actor through Radio Biafra, online propaganda, diaspora mobilization, and protest campaigns. By drawing on collective memories of the Nigeria-Biafra War, marginalization, and historical injustice, IPOB expanded support both in southeastern Nigeria and among diaspora communities (Kwazema 2021). Between 2015 and 2017, repeated clashes between IPOB supporters and Nigerian security forces intensified the conflict, resulting in arrests, deaths, and growing international attention. In September 2017, IPOB was proscribed and designated a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government, a decision later upheld by the Federal High Court in Abuja (Asogwa et al. 2024, p. 2). Following this proscription, the movement became increasingly central to the securitized framing of Biafran self-determination, while practices such as sit-at-home enforcement further deepened tensions between separatist mobilization, coercive non-state authority, and the Nigerian state’s claims to legitimacy and territorial control.

In 2024, Dr. Ngozi Orabueze, serving as acting head of state and deputy prime minister of the United States of Biafra (USB), proclaimed the region’s independence. He asserted that USB met the criteria for statehood outlined in the 1933 Montevideo Convention. Orabueze stated that this independence was the result of a November 29, 2024 referendum in which more than 50 million Biafrans participated. While the USB is recognized by several other UN members, including Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Tanzania and Zambia, the Nigerian government does not recognize the referendum or the declaration of independence (The Authority 2025). Additionally, Simon Ekpa was arrested in Finland on terrorism charges (The Guardian Nigeria 2025).

In the twenty-first century, Biafra separatism has re-emerged through movements such as MASSOB and, more importantly IPOB, but under increasingly security focused conditions. The Nigerian authorities’ designation of IPOB as a terrorist organization and the fact that its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, faces terrorism-related charges in a process that has garnered sustained international attention, narrows the external legitimacy of the secessionist movement. This securitized framing is also reflected in studies that describe IPOB as a movement rooted in a sense of collective victimization among the Igbo, while arguing that its trajectory has shifted from peaceful mobilization toward violent practices and that this transformation has reduced the degree of acceptance it previously enjoyed among Igbo communities (Obiukwu and Njoku 2024, p. 102). A more critical strand of the literature further argues that the proscription of IPOB has not simply contained the movement but has intensified its radicalization, as counter-terrorism operations have been associated with extra-judicial killings, destruction, and the further criminalization of self-determination claims (Ojo 2024, p. 378). In this context, religion retains its importance not as a constitutive basis of the separatist claim, but as part of a broader ethno-religious context where Christian victimhood narratives, northern Sharia politics, and state security discourse intersect. Therefore, Biafra exemplifies an example where an initially ethno-political separatist claim cannot be reduced to religion, but becomes increasingly difficult to read as a legitimate political project internationally when reframed by discourses of terrorism and security.

4.4. Azawad: Ethno- Regional Secession Under Fundamentalist Contamination

During the colonial era, Tuareg communities were distributed across French West Africa, Algeria, and the Italian-ruled territory of Libya. Following decolonization, their settlement in five different states produced divergent political orientations toward independence. For example, Tuaregs in Algeria and Libya engaged in struggles for sovereignty, whereas Tuareg elites in Mali and Niger endorsed the Organisation Commune des Régions Sahariennes (OCRS), an initiative aimed at restructuring former French colonial domains (Lecocq and Klute 2019, p. 26).

Despite the emergence of armed rebellions for secession among the Tuaregs of Mali and Niger, irredentist claims to unite all Tuaregs into a single state have never been officially put forward (Asfura-Heim 2013, p. 2; Lecocq and Klute 2019, p. 53). First, despite their common language, the Tuaregs in the five countries do not constitute a monolithic group due to their separate histories. Second, the territory required to establish a single Tuareg state holds different strategic importance for the five countries. For instance, in Niger, the territory required for a Tuareg state encompasses the region where uranium mines are located and the logistical link between Niger and Algeria (Thomas and Falola 2020, p. 261). Therefore, while Tuareg separatism in Mali could theoretically be accommodated through autonomy for northern Mali, such a solution is far less viable in Niger, where territorial and strategic considerations create major obstacles to Tuareg irredentism. This historical framework helps explain the fragmented structure of Tuareg political mobilization. Accordingly, Azawad is better understood not as a case of religious polarization within a pan-Tuareg movement, but as a territorially specific and politically grounded secessionist movement centered on northern Mali. Because of that the Azawad secessionist movements discontent claim was rooted less in religion than in political exclusion, territorial marginalization, and competing visions of postcolonial order.

The ideas of national independence at the heart of the secessionist movement in Mali, referred to as Tuareg or Azawad separatism, were strengthened by postcolonial policies of territorial delimitation and political subjugation. The insurgency began with low-intensity fighting in the 1990s, and the formation of the Mouvement Populaire de Libération de l’Azawad (MPLA) under the leadership of Iyad ag Ghali, together with other leaders, orchestrated a series of successful operations. In 1991, the Algerian-brokered Tamanrasset Accords resulted in a ceasefire and a vague “special status” for the Tuaregs in northern Mali, essentially granting them autonomy. However, the movement fragmented in the early 1990s due to division along tribal lines reflecting power dynamics within Tuareg society and disputes over the Tamanrasset Accords. As a result of the fragmentation, the Azavad People’s Liberation Front, the Azavad Revolutionary Liberation Army, the Azavad Arab-Islamic Front and the Azavad People’s Movement, which was formed by the remainders of the MPLA, emerged (Lecocq and Klute 2019, p. 427).

On 17 January 2012, the Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA), the first Tuareg separatist movement to openly declare its goal of establishing an independent state of Azawad, defeated the Malian army a few months after launching offensives in northern Mali. The MNLA declared its independence on April 6, 2012 (Maddy-Weitzman 2022, p. 87). The MNLA’s alliances with Libyan Tuaregs and fundamentalist armed groups facilitated the process leading to the declaration of independence. In particular, the connections established with Libyan Tuareg elements and the relationships forged with fundamentalist armed groups expanded the MNLA’s scope of action but also transformed the movement’s international perception. While the literature sometimes argues that these relationships were pragmatic rather than ideological (Lecocq and Klute 2019, p. 44). This situation can be explained by viewing the conflict in Northern Mali through the lens of “political nomadism”, which argues that alliances between local elites, armed actors and jihadist groups are not solely based on ideological affinity, but are also rooted in situational, pragmatic and ever-changing community-based power struggles (Bencherif 2023, p. 490).

Indeed, the political and ethno-regional demands of the Azawad movement were quickly interpreted within the same security framework as the rise of fundamentalist organizations. Therefore, the secessionist movement’s legitimacy in the international arena was weakened, as it was viewed more in terms of terrorism, radicalization, and regional instability than as a demand for self-determination. Ultimately, secession movements, while acting against their existing states, aim to be compatible with and accepted by the system. However, fundamentalist organizations encounter significant opposition from the international community because they are perceived as threatening the entire international system (Walter 2017).

This transformation had a multifaceted and corrosive effect on the international legitimacy of the Azawad movement. As we understand legitimacy to be graded and externally mediated, observable through discursive, diplomatic, institutional and support-related practices, the movement’s discursive legitimacy was weakened as Azawad was increasingly defined not in terms of self-determination, political grievance or regional marginalization, but in terms of terrorism, jihadism and regional instability. Consequently, the distinction between Tuareg separatist actors and jihadist formations became increasingly blurred in the eyes of the outside world, even if local alliances were tactical rather than ideological (Raineri and Strazzari 2015). Secondly, as the conflict in northern Mali became increasingly framed in terms of counterterrorism priorities, the diplomatic legitimacy of Azawad narrowed considerably. This left little room for external actors to consider separatist demands as politically negotiable claims in their own right (Francis 2013). In practice, this shift was reflected in the growing tendency of international and regional actors to prioritize security stabilization over political dialogue with non-state armed groups in northern Mali. Thirdly, the movement’s institutional legitimacy remained fragile as peace frameworks, such as the Algiers Accord, operated under the persistent shadow of terrorist designation. This complicated the inclusion of certain actors and constrained the scope of negotiations. Studies of the Malian conflict conducted in the field show that the presence of overlapping jihadist groups and separatist movements contributed to the external conflation of distinct actors. This weakened the political credibility of Azawad-related claims and reinforced their marginalization in formal peace processes (Thurston 2020).

Finally, Azawad’s support-based legitimacy also remained limited: although the movement benefitted from episodic local and transnational linkages, it failed to generate sustained external backing as a legitimate political project, in part because its persistent association with jihadist actors reduced its international intelligibility as a self-determination claimant (Baldaro and Raineri 2020). Taken together, the Azawad case demonstrates that religion was not the constitutive principle of the original separatist claim, but it became central to the movement’s international de-legitimation once the conflict was reinterpreted through jihadist and counter extremism frameworks. In 2017, the referendum on renaming Northern Mali “Azawad,” which would have given President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita additional powers, was canceled due to opposition (Reuters 2017). Finally, in 2024, Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga, spokesperson for the Malian military government, stated that the peace agreement was absolutely unenforceable due to the “hostile actions” of the Algerian government, the main mediator of the agreement (Allegrozzi 2024).

4.5. Somali 2 (Ogaden): Irredentism and Securitized Legitimacy

The Somali 2 secession movement (Ogaden case) unfolds in Ethiopia’s Somali Region, a territory historically shaped by shifting imperial borders, Somali irredentism, and contested claims to self-determination. In 1897, the border between British Somalia (Somaliland) and Ethiopia was established through an agreement between the two countries. According to this agreement, Ogaden was left to Ethiopia. However, Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia and domination of the region from 1936 to 1940 caused the border between Italian Somalia and Ogaden to disappear. In 1941, when Italy ceded the region to Britain, British Somalia, former Italian Somalia, and Ethiopia became one entity (Vaughan 2019, p. 96). The transitivity between these three regions continued until 1948, when Ogaden came back under Ethiopian sovereignty. This demonstrates why these regions were closely interconnected socially, politically, and economically.

Throughout the history of Ogaden separatism, the movement has oscillated between aspirations for autonomy or an independent state within a larger Somalia. Therefore, the Ogaden movement cannot be considered independent of Somali irredentism, the internal Somali political situation (e.g., the changing interest models of the current Somali government leadership and the division among government and parliamentary members on this issue), Ethiopia’s political and economic stance as a existing state, Somali-Ethiopian relations, and Eritrea’s separation from Ethiopia and establishment as a sovereign state. In short, Ogaden separatism cannot be understood in isolation from Somali irredentism, Ethiopia-Somalia rivalry, and the regional geopolitics of the Horn of Africa.

In response to the creation of the Somali State and the rise of irredentist discourses, the organization Nasrullah (meaning “Sacrifice in the Way of God”) was established in 1963 to promote Ogaden independence (Seid 2009). As its name suggests, the Ogaden secessionist movement was strengthened by the Muslim and Somali identity of its people and by the support it received from Somalia due to Somali irredentism. Following the 1974 regime change in Ethiopia, the Somali government took advantage of the resulting political instability to form the Western Somali Liberation Front in 1975. Six months later, it created the Somali Abo Liberation Front, incorporating figures such as Wako Gutu whose Somali-Oromo identity remained ambiguous and Sheikh Hussein, a veteran of the 1960s secessionist struggles. Operating west of the Wabe Shebelle River under the command of the Somali army, these groups exemplified Somalia’s broader strategy of backing secessionist movements in the region (Vaughan 2019, p. 103). Somalia’s involvement in the Ogaden conflict extended far beyond these initial efforts, both in scale and intensity.

On the other hand, the Ogaden movement should not be reduced solely to a matter of religiously based identity. The region is predominantly Somali and Muslim, and while early organizations as exemplified above, explicitly drew on Islamic symbolism, later mobilizations also benefited from support framed in religious terms. However, the Ogaden National Liberation Front’s (ONLF) core claim was less a religious project and more a struggle for self-determination, political marginalization, and what the movement defined as incomplete decolonization (Thompson and Matshanda 2023). In this sense, religion functioned as a significant indicator of identity and mobilization, but not a sufficient explanation of the conflict itself. Therefore, the Ogaden case should be understood not as a direct case of religious conflict, but as a politically motivated separatist movement embedded within the Somali-Muslim social context.

In August 1984, ONLF was founded by six leaders. Echoing a trend found among several secessionist movements across Africa, the ONLF framed its cause as a struggle for “incomplete decolonization.” The organization criticized the Somali government for undermining its quest for international legitimacy by presenting the conflict through the lens of Somali irredentism or secessionism, thereby limiting the ONLF’s access to global support (Vaughan 2019, p. 105). On 26 January 1994, the ONLF declared itself the representative of the “Self-Determination for Ogadenya” movement and began an armed struggle. In April 2007, the low-intensity conflict escalated when the ONLF attacked a Chinese oil exploration facility in Abole. This attack on a foreign state’s oil exploration facility was intended to prevent the Ethiopian state from growing stronger against the ONLF through the discovery of oil, gas, and other underground resources (Vaughan 2019, p. 111). Between 2007 and 2009, Ethiopia’s aggressive counterinsurgency strategy and Somalia’s support for the movement against the “Christian Occupier” (through the Islamic Courts Union) increased the scale of the conflict and deepened its negative impact on the population (Hagmann and Korf 2012, p. 209). At the same time, the broader regional “war on terror” climate and Ethiopia’s securitization of the separatist movement within this framework facilitated the interpretation of separatist violence in the Somali Region through the lens of extremism and national security, rather than through the language of political grievance and self-determination. In this respect, Ogaden and Azawad are similar in one crucial respect: both movements have experienced conflicts based on disputed sovereignty and “grievances” that have increasingly been perceived by external actors as part of a broader security problem.

This situation had significant consequences for the movement’s international legitimacy. At the discursive level, the ONLF’s claims were frequently overshadowed by narratives of insurgency, terrorism, and regional instability, weakening its visibility as a party claiming self-determination. At the diplomatic level, Ogaden was constrained by the fact that external actors viewed the conflict not as an independent political question, but through the lens of Ethiopian-Somali relations and broader Horn of Africa security priorities. Institutionally, the 2018 peace agreement marked a partial opening, demonstrating that the movement could occasionally gain limited political comprehensibility within a negotiated framework (Pettersson et al. 2019; Ylönen 2022). However, this did not erase a longer history of securitization that narrowed its scope for international recognition and support. Legitimacy based on support similarly remained ambiguous: the movement received various forms of external support at different times, but this support was often intertwined with irredentist, regional, or security logic, rather than with consistent international endorsement of Ogaden’s claim to self-determination (International Crisis Group 2013). Thus, Ogaden presents an example where religion is highly visible, yet the conflict cannot be reduced to religion; Instead, its international legitimacy has been shaped by the interaction of identity, irredentism, and security-focused counter-terrorism frameworks (Ayalew 2023).

5. Conclusions

It has been observed that states often label separatist groups as terrorist or extremist organizations, thereby framing separatist demands within the context of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) and security threats. This makes international legitimacy even more crucial in the process leading from separatist mobilization to claims of independence. Therefore, this article recognizes that the CVE framework is a significant mechanism that influences international legitimacy and that assessments of the future of secession movements should consider the dimensions of conflict, religion and legitimacy together.

The cases examined here reveal that religion does not operate uniformly or in a self-evident way. In some movements, it remains peripheral; in others, it functions as a marker of identity, a language of mobilization or a source of symbolic legitimization. In still other cases, its significance emerges through external interpretation. The interaction between religious salience and CVE-related framing proves more decisive, as it can translate self-determination claims into the language of extremism, terrorism and threat. Therefore, the article argues that international legitimacy is shaped not only by conflict but also by the security vocabularies through which secessionist claims are translated and contested in the international arena.

Table 1. Comparative Overview of International Legitimacy in Secessionist Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Case	Religious Dimension	CVE Framing	Discursive Legitimacy	Diplomatic Legitimacy	Institutional Legitimacy	Support-Based Legitimacy
Western Sahara	Peripheral to the core claim	Moroccan terror and security framing	Decolonization claim remains visible	Partial external access	UN and legal visibility persist	Selective and uneven
Cabinda	Low	Weak CVE framing	Low international visibility	Limited interlocution	Weak inclusion in formal processes	Fragmented and limited
Biafra	Significant, especially through Christian victimhood narratives	Terrorism and public-order framing by the state	Heavily securitized in contemporary discourse	Low diplomatic access	Weak inclusion in formal processes	Mostly symbolic
Azawad	Initially peripheral, heightened through fundamentalist associations	Strong terrorism/CVE overcoding	Self-determination claim overshadowed by terror frame	Sharply narrowed	Weak inclusion in formal processes	Weak sustained external backing
Somali 2 (Ogaden)	Highly visible through Muslim identity	Strong terrorism and insurgency framing	Contested and constrained	Limited and regionally mediated	Partial opening after the 2018 peace agreement	Ambivalent and fluctuating

summarizes the comparative findings of the study by presenting five selected secession movements in relation to their religious significance, CVE framework and the four dimensions of international legitimacy: discursive, diplomatic, institutional and support-based. As all five cases are drawn from the same pool of values regarding the conflict, the table does not solely explain variation through conflict intensity. Rather, it illustrates how movements with similar conflict profiles can occupy different positions in the international arena when the role of religion, the strength of CVE-related framing and broader external interpretations of their claims are considered. The comparison shows that similar conflict profiles do not necessarily produce similar outcomes in terms of legitimacy. Western Sahara remains comparatively visible as an anti-colonial claim; Cabinda suffers from weak legitimacy despite limited religious or CVE framing; Biafra is increasingly narrowed by security discourse; Azawad is most fully delegitimized through jihadist contamination; and Ogaden occupies an ambivalent position shaped by identity, irredentism, and counter-terrorism framing.

The table also shows that cases more visibly associated with Islam may be particularly susceptible to counter-terrorism securitization. In such contexts, existing states are often better positioned to portray secession movements as jihadist, terrorist and destabilizing, thereby strengthening their own claims to order and legitimacy in the eyes of external actors. Where separatist claims intersect with visible Islamic identity, it does suggest that the movement may be more readily repositioned within global security discourse in ways that advantage the existing state and constrain their international legitimacy.