ABSTRACT:

The military establishments of states in Africa have, in the past years, being sized with the additional responsibility of internal security management, especially that intra-state conflicts have become recurring incidents on the continent. These new roles for the military have necessitated periodic reviews of the ways that military operations are conducted to achieve national objectives. The paper examines some of the challenges that the defence sectors of most states in Africa face, and the efforts to institute transformation processes that will put Africa militaries in the right shape to perform such roles as peace support operations and other humanitarian interventions. It is argued in the paper that in other to confront the ever-growing conflicts in several states in Africa, there is need to institute visionary and all encompassing transformation programmes that would upgrade and professionalize the armed forces in both structural and strategic terms. It is recommended that African leaders, who have over the year debilitated their armed forces for political survival, should show a renewed commitment to the professionalization of their armed forces for them to continue to exercise the primary constitutional role of defence of their countries against external threats, and also to be more combat-efficient and effective in national security management, especially in this age of terrorism.