Polisario Front seeks Nigerian support

Amid growing global support for Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, the Polisario Front is seeking Nigerian support, according to the pro-Moroccan Yabiladi and agencies on July 25th.

A Polisario delegation, led by Foreign Minister Mohamed Yeslem Beissat, arrived in Nigeria on July 24th to discuss ties with his Nigerian counterpart, Ambassador Sola Enikanolaiye, in Abuja.

Beissat delivered a message to Nigeria’s president: “The meeting provided an opportunity for both sides to revisit and strengthen the historic fraternal relations between Nigeria and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic [SADR].”

The Polisario Front has recognised the SADR since 1976, which Nigeria has supported since establishing diplomatic relations in 1984.

Backed by Algeria, the Polisario Front rejects the widely supported Moroccan Autonomy Plan, or Resolution 2797, to grant the Western Sahara limited self-governance under Moroccan control.

Resolution 2797 is backed by 130 nations and is perceived as a credible solution to the territorial dispute that has persisted since Spanish colonial rule ended in 1975.

Algeria and its allies have called for an independence referendum to decide Western Sahara’s future, which has been rejected.

Support for Moroccan sovereignty is expressed by the majority of EU nations, Britain, the US and several African nations, including Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Burundi and Gabon.

African nations are expected to benefit from Morocco’s Atlantic Initiative to provide landlocked countries access to the Atlantic Ocean via Morocco.

Nigeria is an outlier in Africa for its ongoing support for the SADR, which the EU reaffirmed its long-standing non-recognition of in May 2025.

Polisario militants claim to fight for self-determination for the Sahrawi people, who are indigenous to the resource-rich Western Sahara, which Morocco and its allies are accused of exploiting.

Displaced by decades of conflict, many Sahrawis reside in refugee camps, like southern Algeria’s Tindouf camps, which are under Polisario control.

The Tindouf camps have reportedly hosted Hezbollah militants, Tuareg and Kurdish separatists, leading to concerns about extremism and attacks at the Mauritanian border.

Polisario militants were allegedly involved in coordinated attacks in Mali alongside the al-Qaeda-affiliated JNIM and the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) on April 25th.

Before the 1991 ceasefire, Polisario militants allegedly fought against Moroccan forces during the armed conflict between Morocco and the Western Sahara; the ceasefire broke down in 2020.

On June 9th, concerns about ties between separatists and jihadists led Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita to call for Africa to become a global counterterrorism hub.

Yabiladi and agencies, Maghrebi.org