Partition, sometimes peaceful, sometimes not, may be universally feared as a way out of persistent territorial conflicts, except in rare cases (Sudan, Ethiopia) where partition was instead finally facilitated by the international community, but amongst a forest of territorial and/or ethnic disputes, two current cases stand out as particularly evident and challenging, today’s Sudan and Libya. Federalism – often a case of politicized ambivalence, containing and/or promoting separatism.
“Land of the rising sun, we love and cherish”, with the melody picked up from the beautiful middle section of Sibelius’ Finlandia. This was the national anthem of the breakaway state (1967-70) of Biafra, a forerunner in the post-colonial scramble for separate nationhood in Africa, in the case of Nigeria a devastating civil war between the Nigerian federation, led as a result of tumultuous events as from 1966 by general Gowon, and the secessionist south-eastern part, dominated by the Ibo tribe and led by colonel Ujukwu. “To keep Nigeria one is a job that must be done” being the federal slogan, the purported new state of Biafra was, after some three years of desperate resistance, stillborn in its cradle, in spite of widespread international sympathy arisen from pictures of starving children, and in spite of some military assistance rendered by Swedish count Gustaf von Rosen.
The Biafra case was a first of its kind, a reaction against arbitrary borders drawn up by the colonial powers in their intense competition for influence and resources, in this case the British and their colonial policy of indirect rule, and divide and rule, leaving behind a Nigerian state in three major parts, or regions, the North dominated by Muslim Hausa/Fulani, the South-West (including the capital Lagos and other major cities) dominated by mixed-religion Yoruba, and the South-East, dominated by entrepreneurial Christian Ibos, these dividing lines reflected in a British style (Westminster) parliamentary system. Dramatic events in 1966, coup and counter-coup, el al, led to a mass exodus to the “Ibo home land” of Ibos living in the North after massacres there, and then secession and then civil war, leaving some two million casualties. The world at that time allowed the secession attempts to be crushed, for fear of the idea of secession spreading throughout the continent and beyond.
Nigeria, still today occasionally shaken by civil strife and terror/anti-terror strain in basically the same north-south dimension as in the 60s, subsequently sought the solution to its notorious structural, centrifugal challenges in developing its federal system into ever more and ever smaller states, thereby preventing ethnic and social tensions from being based in territorial regions large enough to make for credible statehood, and hence secessionist temptations.
The Biafra crisis was long, and many Nigerian crises, ago, but there is still this state-building challenge haunting many countries in Africa (and beyond) – hence the profound reluctance on the part of the African Union and other actors to accept anything that smells secession, notably as regards structurally vulnerable state actors such as DRC, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia. Hence, too, the constant problem pertaining to federalism as a – or the – counter-measure to festering centrifugal tendencies, in the delicate balance between federalism as a lasting means to cope with and contain centrifugal tendencies and actors, and federalism as a risky path to further fragmentation on a potentially slippery slope. There are examples of this in abundance, historically and globally.
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But here we must make sure to make some important distinctions. One is between cases – e. g. a civil war over an attempted secession – where the central government simply crushes the rebellion/secession after a more or less protracted and more or less bloody fight, with whatever longer-term consequences, and on the other hand cases where the outcome is much more murky and uncertain, perhaps (usually) due to foreign intervention/entanglement. Or the crisis is somehow overcome, again perhaps through foreign intervention/mediation, by the parties agreeing on some compromise. Or the conflict ends up in a protracted, perennial, armistice, maintaining the de facto partition but stopping the warfighting, such as the case of the Koreas. Or a frozen conflict without formal, informal or provisional arrangement. All these varieties shaping the future and the political culture of the countries concerned, for better or for worse, whether as it applies to Africa or beyond, more often than not in the global north-south dimension. Hence the classical names, past and present: North vs South Korea, north vs south Vietnam and north vs south Sudan, and perhaps others, excluding the cases where such a north-south division ended up in historical failure, secession failure, such as Nigeria.
And, of course, not to forget the rare cases of peaceful, even amicable, partition, such as the 1905 partition of Sweden-Norway and the 1992 partition of Czechoslovakia into the independent. Separate states of Czech Republic and Slovakia.
But then we have the distinction between the above varieties and, on the other hand, cases where the international community (in some legitimate shape or form) decides that partition, in spite of all the sad lessons and risks, is indeed the best and only way out. This is something else than an international de facto acceptance of a territorial conflict ending with the victory of one side, normally a central government versus a secessionist actor, such as in the case of Vietnam – and obviously not all civil wars are about territory and secession.
Here we are dealing with a deliberate decision to accept partition – to some extent and in some cases tantamount to successful secession – as the best, presumably only, solution to a protracted conflict, notably over territory but often based on ethnicity and/or religion. The key cases here are the UN-facilitated Ethiopia-Eritrea partition in the 90s (however leaving Ethiopia with many other secession challenges lingering) and the 2011 partition on Sudan and South Sudan, the latter after decades of devastating civil war and then a lengthy peace process based on an international ruling that if at the end of the process the south Sudanese would in a referendum decide to opt for independence and hence partition, then so be it. The south Sudanese, for all their internal differences and festering armed conflicts, opted by near-total consensus for independence, the resulting Republic of South Sudan becoming the internationally recognized 54th state in Africa. This writer was there to observe the July 11 celebrations.
To what extent these cases of internationally blessed partition led to life quality improvements for the peoples affected is another – complicated – story. Suffice to say here that the African Union and other international voices were keen to explain that whereas secession and partition is normally extremely sensitive and dangerous as a means to solve conflicts over borders and territory, in these cases, and especially the protracted Sudan case, exception simply had to be the rule.
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And now, 2025, two cases (of potential partition) stand out on the African scene, amongst a host of territorial disputes haunting the continent, Sudan (again Sudan) and Libya, both representing an international dilemma, again, like before; whether to maintain the normal, hitherto refusal to accept partition as a conceivable and tolerable means towards peace, or whether to reluctantly bow to the apparent reality that in some cases, like those of Ethiopia and Sudan, partition may be the inevitable, only means to achieve peace and stability. It would seem, in any case, that both Sudan and Libya will represent a huge challenge, in these terms, for decisionmakers in Africa and beyond. Incidentally, unlike most comparable cases, both cases, Sudan and Libya, represent strain and partition risks along the east-west, not the north-south, axis, hence unrelated to ethnicity and/or religion. The situation and trends in these conflict-ridden countries is – as we know – a long and complex story, but for the purposes of this article the question is whether both (or either of them) are in fact sliding into a state of de facto partition, in defiance of any and all international efforts to prevent this from happening, for want of any other conceivable means to promote sustainable peace. So this is raising a question, rather than daring a prediction.
The case of Sudan, first, the “rump-Sudan” that emerged into a pattern of conflict having de-coupled from its former southern part, now South Sudan, first the ouster of the ICC-targeted dictator al-Bashir, then some attempts at “Arab spring”-inspired attempts at democratic nation-building, then military takeover, and then the bloody civil war between the regular army chief al-Burhan and his dissenting opponent, RSF militia chief Dagalo ever since April 2023, creating in the bloody contest the image of Sudan as the biggest humanitarian disaster of the world, in terms of numbers affected. The division now of the contest is not distinctly east-west oriented – Kordofan region in the south being the exception – but the main thrust is having the regular army dominate the eastern part, from port Sudan to the capital Khartoum, whereas the RSF militia dominates in (Kordofan and) Darfur in the west, both having now established their own “governments” and civilian administrations, repeated attempts by the US and the UN to appeal for ceasefire and humanitarian assistance having been rejected by one or both parties over time.
So the trend is clearly towards de facto partition, of sorts, and it seems third party intervention (US, UN, EU, AU) remains unable to do much about it, especially since third party intervention, or entanglement, also works the other way round, with different neighboring countries (and beyond) compounding the division with competitive support for the two entrenched sides.
As for Libya, a de facto division between West/Tripoli and East (Bengazi) has been the complicated political reality ever since the US/UK/F led ouster of dictator Ghadafi and especially since the UN-driven but inhibited general elections in 2020. Here, too, the division has been compounded by the intervention of foreign vested interests on either of the two sides, including Turkey supporting Tripoli and its leader Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, politically and militarily, and Russia/Wagner Group and UAE rather supporting the eastern administration under the leadership of Khalifa Haftar. Even though patterns of international support and the role of different players, such as the US and various European countries with varying interests, tend to be vague and shifting, the trend towards partition appears to be if not irreversible then at least steady, as the necessary price for peace and in view of the absence so far of viable, alternative paths to sustainable peace, for the benefit of global demand for Libyan oil and for a humane and orderly handling of transiting, Europe-destined flows of refugees.
So beware, governments in Ethiopia, Somalia, DRC and elsewhere, in Africa and beyond (the Middle East included), the threat of secession and partition remains a risk and a challenge. The world, clearly, is currently less ready and able to cope with this threat than earlier. And many, certainly not all but many, would agree that in the final analysis partition, in special cases, is preferrable to open war.