Journeying to jihadiphate: A vehicle framework of jihadist conflicts in West Africa

This article introduces a new framework for understanding the emergence, development and escalation of jihadist conflicts in West Africa and the Sahel using the analogy of a vehicle. The vehicle analytical framework (VAF) simplifies the complexity of jihadist groups into seven incremental stages: mobilisation, driver, license, ignition, green light, motion, and acceleration, and points to the most fundamental causes of these conflicts. The framework dissects the horizontal causal factors and their vertical levels of operation and highlights the interplay between ideology, socio-economic grievances, historical consciousness, and geographical contingencies that fuel jihadist campaigns. The article contextualises jihadist conflicts within the sub-region's historical and contemporary socio-political and structural realities. Central to the VAF is the imperative to transcend traditional, monolithic, temporal, and outsourced readings of jihadist militancy, while providing a simplified understanding for policy making. The framework illustrates that the most fundamental cause of jihadist rebellion in West Africa is not simply the presence of adverse conditions but their persistence. Accordingly, the most sustainable solutions would be those that target what guarantees this persistence: the paralytic state in Africa.