The necropolitics of drone bases and use in the African context

Ezenwa Olumba

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Abstract

This paper critically evaluates the establishment of drone bases and the use of drones in several African countries and territories. Despite the significant financial commitments needed, external forces continue to invest heavily in drone bases and operations across the continent, often promoted for the security of the countries in Africa. Using secondary sources, this paper employs the concept of “necropolitics” to argue that these drone bases, along with the technologies emanating from them – ostensibly for counter-insurgencies or counter-piracy – represent the deployment of “aerial technologies of domination”. It posits that such technologies enable external forces to control the airspaces of several African countries and determine who lives and dies, thereby ensuring their acquiescence and subjugation under aerial colonialism. This paper challenges the prevailing discourse that drone operations primarily serve the interests of those under its surveillance and advocates for the establishment of pan-African security partnerships to guide against aerial colonialism across the countries of Africa.