Realising that the West African region is now caught in the labyrinth of terrorism and other forms of criminality, which have hindered the well-being of the citizens and the economy, leaders of the Economic Community of West African States pledged to deal with the scourge at their recent meeting in Abuja. A $2.3 billion budget was adopted for that purpose.
While member-states will contribute $1 billion, the balance is expected from international partners. As a result, the President of ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Brou, has been mandated to organise a donor conference as soon as possible, just as he will put in place, a transparent mechanism for managing the funds. The commission says, “The money is intended for the provision of equipment to support the defence forces of member-states, training of relevant bodies and effective intelligence sharing.”
This communal response, though belated, is a move in the right direction. Intriguingly, non-state actors have demystified the security forces of many member-states. For 10 years, Boko Haram’s murderous activities have led to the death of about 100,000 persons in Nigeria. Military locations are attacked in Borno and Yobe states with reckless abandon. As soldiers are killed, arms and ammunition, including hardware, are then carted away by the insurgents to enrich their armoury. In the wake of all this, the country is facing its worst humanitarian crisis since the Civil War ended, with over 1.9 million people internally displaced. With the Islamic State West African Province now in the North-East in an unholy alliance with Boko Haram, the end of their bloodbath in the area is not yet in sight.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, for more than a decade, has been a bad influence on jihadists in Mali. The French military, complemented by the West Africa Joint Task Force, ousted the Islamists in the northern region of that country in 2013. Ever resilient in their macabre rampage, the Islamists killed more than 50 soldiers there early in November. Another attack left 24 soldiers dead. It was in pursuit of these evil merchants that 13 French soldiers died recently, when their helicopters collided.
In Niger Republic, 71 soldiers were killed last month and 30 others missing as the Islamists attacked a military camp. The country’s defence spokesman, Boubacar Hassan, said, “The terrorists bombarded the camp with shells and mortars.” Burkina Faso is also regularly under attack. On Christmas Eve, a terror attack there left 35 people dead, most of them women. Seven soldiers were killed too.
The individual experience of each country, including Chad and Cameroon that are at the region’s frontiers, underscores the fact that it is time multilateralism took the centre stage in confronting these jihadists, who are fuelled by the Salafist ideology. This strategy evinced in the Multi-national Joint Task Force, which Nigeria forged with Niger, Chad and Cameroon, when the President, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), assumed office in 2015. And enamoured of the initiative, the United States released a $5 million grant to the group in addition to the $21 million Nigeria had provided. But the momentum could not be sustained; perhaps due to the error of judgement that the security challenge was Nigeria’s. No.
Islamism in the region is a subset of the global jihad. Respecting no national boundary, religion or race, nobody is, therefore, safe. For instance, the attack on the tourist resort of Grand-Brassam in Cote d’Ivoire in 2016 left 16 people dead, including French and German nationals. Western tourists were also some of the casualties of gun assaults on Radisson Blue Hotel in Bamako and Hotel Splendid and Cappuccino Cafe in Ouagadougou within the same period.
Therefore, the region’s security problem will need more than raising and sharing funds among member-states. Asymmetric battles are fought with intelligence gathering and technology. The military of countries in the region are deficient in these tools for effective counter-insurgency. There should be a central intelligence agency that should redefine the common assault on these Islamic fundamentalists. Such intelligence should target taking out their leaders and by so doing, weaken their resolve. The US put this strategy to good effect in 2011, when it eliminated Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, in his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In Nigeria, each video appearance of Abubakar Shekau, renewing his terror campaign and digging against Nigeria’s military, brings in bold relief the abject failure of intelligence.
ECOWAS leaders can get the US, France, Britain and Israel, which have a wealth of experience in fighting terror wars, to support the region to the hilt. Their promises of assistance by way of approving the purchase of some special military hardware and grants have not changed the dynamics for good. With Western satellites in space, they can lead the region in intelligence gathering and tracking of leaders of these murderous groups. The defeat of ISIS in Iraq, Libya in tatters following the death of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and the corollary of illegal arms influx will continue to pose existential threats to the sub-region. Having been dislodged in these places, these jihadists have turned West Africa into their new haven. Border control, therefore, should be taken seriously. Without cutting off the arms supply chain and checking financial institutions to unravel sources of international terror financing, the leaders’ efforts would only amount to shadow-boxing.
The West should stop blowing hot and cold on the Boko Haram and al-Shabaab activities in West Africa. As they are among the five deadliest terror groups in the world, according to Global Terrorism Index, they could mutate into worse forms. Their transnational mass murders and the humanitarian crises in the wake of illegalities are crimes against humanity. Western interests might not be their primary targets currently, but the 2011 Boko Haram bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja, points to the fluidity of this evil with the global reach of its consequences.
However, the level of international support will first be shaped by the seriousness that ECOWAS member-countries attach to this new awakening. It took Chad three days to put on trial 10 members of Boko Haram that attacked her in 2015, convicted and put them to death. Such swift legal action sends a strong message; and it should be adopted as a strategy. West Africa has some of the worst global health and economic indices. Adding terrorism, banditry and herdsmen killings to her development millstone would be too cumbrous to bear.
