Africa: Non-state armed groups are the main drivers of violence targeting local officials

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This report is part of ACLED's annual Violence Targeting Local Officials series that has been covering this topic for the past four years.

In 2025, violence affected local officials in 28 African countries but was strongly concentrated in the east and west of the continent (see map below). Although this violence has been decreasing regionwide since 2023, in three of the six worst-affected countries — Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Cameroon — it grew in 2025. In South Sudan, it remained at the same levels recorded in 2024, while it decreased in Kenya and Somalia. All six of these countries were also in the top 10 worst-affected countries in 2024.

In all of these countries, activity involving non-state armed groups, mostly insurgencies and militias, is the main driver of violence targeting local officials. Even when they are not specifically targeted, local officials are endangered by overlapping and high-intensity conflicts that pit these armed groups against a challenged state and each other. According to ACLED’s 2025 Conflict Index, all except Somalia ranked among the top 10 countries in Africa for the number of active armed groups.

The increase in violence in Nigeria and Cameroon in 2025 was driven by a rise in abductions, one of the primary forms of violence in both countries, as bandit groups, Islamists, and separatist groups employ kidnapping for ransom as a form of revenue generation. Abductions were concentrated in more remote areas, where the state's ability to protect officials is more limited. Most of these events were not related to mass abductions, pointing to a deliberate strategy to directly target officials, especially village leaders. While these abductions were reported across the country in Nigeria, all incidents but one in Cameroon took place in the Anglophone region, where Ambazonian separatists operate.  

In Ethiopia and South Sudan, ethnically aligned armed groups contesting the state or fighting one another in disputed territories drove heightened levels of violence. In Ethiopia officials faced violence from several armed groups, including the Oromia-based Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), Fano militias in Amhara, and the Tigray People's Liberation Front. Despite a peace agreement in 2024 that lowered violence by the OLA overall, the group more than doubled its attacks on local officials in 2025, not only directly targeting officials, but also destroying public offices and documents, compromising the functioning of local administrations.

In South Sudan, clan and ethnic attacks and armed clashes were prevalent, including conflict between the Nuer-dominated Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition and the Dinka-dominated Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in government. The increasing unviability of the 2018 peace agreement, which ended the civil war, and continuation among the major competing factions of ethnically based, winner-take-all dynamics of governance has continued to drive violence against local officials in line with broader inter-ethnic violence over power and resources.¹

In Somalia, violence against local officials decreased for the third consecutive year, as al-Shabaab’s use of explosives and remote violence to target local authorities reached its lowest levels since 2020, even as violence involving al-Shabaab in Somalia reached a peak. For the first time since 2018, the Banadir region didn’t record the highest level of violence against local officials, which can be partially explained by improved security in and around Mogadishu.² 

Across the border in Kenya, ACLED also records a slight decrease in violence targeting local officials in 2025, following an all-time high the previous year. Kenya had the highest level of mob violence affecting local officials.The violence was concentrated in Nairobi and the southwestern part of the country, where political rivals often pay so-called goons to threaten, harass, or otherwise intimidate their opponents.³ Of the 19 mob attacks against local officials in 2025, 12 were conducted by known or suspected supporters of a rival political force.

Regional trends in violence targeting local officials