Security in the Lake Chad Basin and Sahel region after Idris Déby

ABSTRACT Idris Déby’s counterinsurgency in the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) and the Sahel crafted imaginaries of Déby as a bulwark against terrorism in the region. Existing scholarship argues that Deby's death has accentuated insecurity in the region. The study adopts critical analysis and is anchored in the theory of security regionalism; it argues that the politics of Déby as a regional strongman constricted democratic spaces, invited violent opposition, and sustained rebellion in parts of the region. Although Déby provided occasional pushback when the terrorists inflicted harm on Chadian interests, he would not have won the war against terror unilaterally without regional cooperation.