As African countries continue to witness an upsurge in terror groups, they appear determined to join forces to rid the continent of the menace, writes Special Correspondent, SAM NWOKORO
For some years now, Nigeria and several other Africa countries have been on the throes of terror attacks. In Nigeria, the Boko Haram, a fundamentalist Islamic group, has held the country by the jugular since 2009. When the group was first noticed, it was not as violence as it is now; but in the past few years, it has taken a very deadly dimension so much that it has killed more than 10,000 people.
It has targeted both sacred and high profile places such as churches, police and United Nations (UN) headquarters in the country. At a point, the group went for soft targets such as schools and even media houses. As a result, more than 230 girls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, were abducted in April 14 this year. And just a week ago, some 152 days after the Chibok incident, Boko Haram attacked Gulak town in Adamawa State and abducted another set of 50 ladies.
And in recent weeks, the group has stepped up its activities, declaring a caliphate in some parts of the Northern state under its control.
The group’s activities have become a big threat to the stability and corporate existence of the country, though the armed forces are trying to choke the group into submission, it is never an easy task as the insurgents operate mostly between the borderlines of the country.
Nigeria’s neighbouring countries, Chad and Cameroon, are also not faring better, as terrorist groups with Al-Qaeda links are on the prowl there. North Africa is traumatised by different terrorist groups as well, just as East Africa also has its fair share of terrorist activities by the dreaded Al-Shabaab group. In fact, in the past decade, Africa has witnessed a major expansion and escalation of terror.
According to security experts, the threat of terrorism is accelerating across Africa at an alarming rate so much that so far, 22 countries have been targeted.
So, on Monday, September 1, some African presidents, including Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria, converged on Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, to discuss the situation. They met under the aegis of African Union (AU)’s Peace and Security Council (PSC), which is a crucial department of the regional body saddled with the responsibility of preventing, managing and resolving conflicts in Africa.
The meeting – a follow-up to talks by President Jonathan and other African leaders at Pretoria, South Africa, in May this year on joint action against terrorism – received and considered the report of the chairperson of the African Union Commission on Terrorism and Violent Extremism in Africa.
It also reported on terrorism-related issues at an earlier summit in Equatorial Guinea, in June. African leaders meeting there expressed deep concern about the threats from Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab in the horn of Africa, and from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which operates in a wide area across the Sahara, Algeria and Morocco.
Top on the agenda was the ongoing Boko Haram terrorist attacks in Nigeria, the insurgency in Mali as well as other terror-related activities going on in the continent.
The Council also discussed the implementation of the operational conclusions of the fifth meeting of heads of intelligence and security services of Sahel-Saharan countries held on May 19 and 20 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
“Deliberations at the Nairobi summit and the adoption of the African chairperson’s report by President Jonathan, President Uhuru Kenyatta and other participating heads of state are expected to lead to more collaborative actions by Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, and other African countries to rid the continent of acts of terrorism and violent extremism,” President Jonathan’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Reuben Abati, said as Jonathan was about to jet out of the country for the meeting.
At the meeting, Jonathan tasked African leaders to adopt an “action- oriented approach” against the activities of terrorists with a view to stopping them from the continued massacre of innocent people across the continent.
He lamented the increasing wave of violence perpetrated by Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), but assured that the AU had what it takes in terms of legal, political and normative instruments to deal with the rising sophistication of terrorists. He called for effective use of the instruments, even as he maintained that a lot of work needed to be done rid the continent of terrorism.
“While both member states and the Commission deserve to be commended for their commitment and efforts, much remains to be done, nonetheless. The atrocities that continue to be committed by the terrorist groups active in the Sahelo- Saharan region – Boko Haram, the LRA, Al-Shabaab and other terrorist groups – bear testimony to the long road ahead of us,” he said.
The president stated that the first solution has to do with the need for enhanced cooperation among member states and between the continent and the rest of the international community.
“Indeed, the problem we are confronting is global in nature. Terrorist and organised crime syndicates operate in networks that can only be defeated through concerted action and cooperation. The African Union and its various instruments and mechanisms provide the framework within which we should combine our efforts and pull together our scarce resources,” he said.
He added that the second point concerns the need for action- oriented approach and effective implementation of the available instruments to deal with the issue.
His words: “The countries concerned should take the steps required to become parties to the relevant African and international instruments. We should, as member states, fulfil our commitments and obligations, particularly with respect to legal measures, border control, exchange of intelligence and other related measures.”
Chairperson of the Council, President Idriss Deby of Chad, assured that the council would leave no stone unturned in the fight against terror.
Kenya President, Kenyatta, challenged African leaders to provide the funds needed to fight terrorism to complement the support coming from outside the continent.
African Union’s top official for counter-terrorism, Ambassador Francisco Madeira, raised the need to track the sources of the terrorist groups funding, saying: “We need decisions and then we need to know the sources of support – material, financial and otherwise – to the different bodies that are dealing with the issue of terrorism.
“We need better coordination of action among member states and better sharing of information, operational information, for them to be more effective on the ground and act faster against Al-Shabaab, AQIM, Boko Haram and all these.”
Some African countries have been accused of not doing enough and misusing the funds provided to combat terrorism.
For example, America says it has given Nigeria $2,032.6 billion (about N329.28 billion) in the past three years to fight insurgents, including Boko Haram, but there is no word on intelligence sharing because Washington does not trust Abuja to keep secrets.
And TheNiche reported on June 1 that Nigeria itself had voted about N2 trillion for security in the past two years, a huge chunk of which is spent on the fight against Boko Haram in the North Eastern states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa.
However, the battle seems too tough for the armed forces to win, prompting experts in international affairs to query the prudence of expenditure funds and Nigeria’s image among international partners.
United States embassy spokesman, Sean J. McIntosh, disclosed to TheNiche in an e-mail enquiry that his country has given Nigeria $2,032.6 billion to combat insurgency, and that Nigeria’s neighbours – Cameroon, Chad, and Niger – are not left out of the American largesse, yet the insurgents roam the borders free.
Burundi’s ambassador to Ethiopia and to the AU, Alain Nyamitwe, however, noted that AU military missions have been successfully deployed to worst hit countries like Somalia and Mali, but noted that a lot more still needed to be done to fight terrorism on the continent.
“So I think the Peace and Security Council is charging its mandate very well, (although) of course no organ of the AU is perfect,” said Nyamitwe. “That does not mean we are not doing enough. We are possibly not performing up to the level of expectation.”
At the end of the meeting, the members resolved to establish a security and anti-terrorism fund to fight terrorism, both anti-state terrorists and extremist/fundamentalist terrorists.
The PSC is AU’s standing decision-making body responsible for the maintenance of continental peace and security. It came into existence officially on the December 26, 2003, with 15 members elected by the AU Executive Council on regional basis (three from Central Africa; three from East Africa; two from North Africa; three from Southern Africa; and four from West Africa).
Members are elected for three-year (five members) or two-year (10 members) terms and can be re-elected immediately for another term. While there are no permanent members and no veto, PSC chairmanship rotates on a monthly basis, in alphabetical order of the English-language names of member states.