Boko Haram is a major threat to the peace and security of countries in the West African sub region, President Mahama has stated.
Boko Haram has waged a five-year insurgency to carve out an Islamic state in the northeastern part of Africa’s biggest economy, Nigeria.
The militant islamist group, recently launched attacks on Cameroon and Chad.
[contextly_sidebar id=”VDy6gtlS9uTqpzyX06srruIPQ3gIgORM”]Speaking to West African Representatives in Germany,President Mahama called on countries in the continent to come together to devise innovative and comprehensive measures of battling the menace.
“Boko Haram is a regional threat, no country in West Africa can say that it is too far away to be affected…all of us in the sub region are threatened by Boko Haram and indeed on the whole continent.We cannot leave the individual countries alone to deal with it,” Mahama said.
“We need to structure something properly that allows our partners to provide financing and logistics so that more countries are involved in ensuring that we deal with it in a more comprehensive manner,” the President added.
He said the activities of the militant group will also be extensively discussed at the AU summit to bring their activities to a halt.
“Its terrorism of this kind that Boko Haram presents and so we have suggested that it should be a main topic for the AU summit that we are going to attend in Adisababa at the end of this month and that we will be able to get the AU to support the creation of a regional force to confront Boko Haram and deal with it.”
About Boko Haram
Founded in 2002
Initially focused on opposing Western education – Boko Haram means“Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language
Launched military operations in 2009 to create an Islamic state.
Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria – but also attacks on police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja.
Some three million people affected Declared terrorist group by US in 2013 –
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By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana