Posted by Nuhu Ribadu, the nation’s top security adviser, has urged a more comprehensive approach to countering terrorism in Africa by coordinating regional cooperation initiatives with military and economic measures.
“Strengthening Regional Cooperation and Institution Building to Address the Evolving Threat of Terrorism in Africa” was the topic of Monday’s High-Level African Counter-Terrorism Meeting in Abuja, where Ribadu made the plea.
According to him, the meeting’s central subject highlights the critical need of addressing the enduring effects of terrorism, which pose a danger to everyone’s safety and well-being.
The number of fatalities caused by terrorism rose by 22% in 41 nations in 2023, he claims.
Terrorism and violent extremism have persisted as threats to Africa’s security, according to the NSA, particularly in the years 2020–2023.
He listed many terrorist organizations as sources of danger, including Boko Haram and ISWAP in northeast Nigeria, Somalia’s al Shabaab, and Islamic States in the Greater Sahara along the borders of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso.
He included Mozambique, the Central African province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Islamic State among the others.
Terrorist groups, he continued, took advantage of people’s weaknesses and helped keep the peace, therefore we need security plans that include economic, military, and regional cooperation.
In addition, he said that economic disparity, poverty, ethnic and religious conflicts, governance issues, and political instability all play a big role.
According to Amb. Yusuf Tuggar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, terrorism poses a unique danger to the continent’s ideals, freedoms, dreams, and ambitions.
Terrorists, according to Tuggar, wanted to bring down the same institutions that make growth, prosperity, and peace possible.
“Bombers and gunmen in one part of the world are financed from another, equipped from another, steal, and picked targets without discrimination,” he noted, adding that nations are battling networks that know neither frontiers or borders.