A former Minister of Interior and former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazzau [rtd]; a former Director of Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies [IPSS], University of Ibadan, Prof. Olawale Albert, and others have disclosed that insurgents and terrorists are targeting the coastal states of Nigeria and coastal regions of the Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] in order to take over the Sahel region.
Dambazzau and Albert, who raised the alarm during a round table dialogue series organised by the Nigerian Academy of Letters [NAL] with the theme: ‘’Emerging Security Threats in the Sahel Region- implications for Nigeria’’, called for security partnership with the alliance states, especially the Niger Republic.
The round table, which was held virtually, was attended by security scholars, researchers, political scientists, and administrators. The discussion was chaired by the Director-General [DG] of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs [NIIA], Prof. Eghosa Osaghae.
Albert , a Fellow of NAL, said security issues in the Sahel should be given attention, because of its implications in Nigeria.The security scholar said that most terrorist organisations have their African bases in the Sahel. The professor maintained that Niger should be protected as part of Nigeria, stating that Niger many weapons enter the Niger Republic. He emphasised that Nigeria’s good relationship with Niger would help reduce the number of foreign fighters that are coming into the country.
He said: ”We are interested in Nigeria because Nigeria is one of the most impacted countries in the Sahel and our president is the current chairman of ECOWAS. Therefore, if the problem is not properly managed, we would have more problems in Nigeria as we have started witnessing.
”I am of the opinion that we have more problems in the Sahel because the three most impacted states in the Sahel have pulled out of ECOWAS. ECOWAS has conflict management. Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have pulled out and therefore the security problems in the Sahel have increased. It is now difficult for ECOWAS to use its existing peace and security architecture across the region. So, once ECOWAS gets Senegal and Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria . The problems in those three states have increased insecurity in that corridor. Now, we have more problems- one, Mali has driven away the United Nations Peacekeepers from its jurisdictions. France has been expelled from the three countries. So, those who were actually supporting these countries in the past to deal with the issues of terrorism have been pushed out.
‘’So, the Russians and Chinese have come in. The Qataris, and Arabs are coming in for different reasons. In other words, more problems are being added to what we already had in the Sahel. The Russians and Chinese have totally different security management systems that these countries are used to. In other words, they are just learning and carrying out experiments in West Africa. I think this is why more deaths are being recorded in all these countries, including Northern Nigeria.
‘’They are targeting the South to get more resources to fund their operations and the operations of their sponsors in the Middle East. They are effectively operating in Kogi, Kwara and Benue States. Owo’s attack was to experiment how people would respond to the battle in the Southwest.
”The implication for Nigeria is that more foreign fighters are coming to Nigeria not to pursue any religious objective. It has become a business. So, they come with different types of weapons and that is actually expanding the crisis in Nigeria and some of the weapons come through Libya.
”Weapons in Libya are no longer Gaddafi’s weapons but they are shipped into Libya from different parts of the world, because the ports in Libya are open and used by criminals who want to ship arms into different parts of Africa. Many of these arms get into Nigeria through Chad ,and Niger. That is why we need to mind how we manage Niger. Niger should be protected as part of Nigeria. Niger has to prevent as many as possible weapons from coming into Niger. Our good relationship with Niger would help reduce the number of foreign fighters that are coming into Nigeria”.
Dambazzau, who was also a panelist, said the security challenge in Nigeria is a regional problem and it must be addressed regionally.
The former minister stated that insurgents were attracted to Nigeria for many reasons. According to him, the reasons include the strategy of attacking the strongest country in the sub-region which is Nigeria, extensive borderlines, the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of the country which is the fault lines being exploited by insurgents, the dissolution of relationship with Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, extensive swats of forests that are ungoverned which provides a safe haven for the group, availability of resources, and others.
The general said Nigeria must act fast to prevent insurgents from taking over Togo, and Benin. He said: ‘’Despite the current withdrawal of membership from ECOWAS, Nigeria should maintain strong regional security partnership with the Alliance states, especially the Niger Republic, to prevent and control cross-border activities of insurgents and other criminals operating in the region.”
The general stated further: ‘’ The main threat in the Sahel today is that of insurgency and terrorism. Within the Sahel, these three countries –Mali Burkina Faso and Niger are the most impacted. This is the major reason they are part of what is formed as G5 Sahel with France behind it. Their relationship with Sahel is dissolved. These three countries are the blockers of the corridors where insurgents were concentrated. The region facing our weakest points is Togo and Benin. This is why you have found these insurgents moving across towards Togo and Benin.
‘’Also with Nigeria as the strongest point of ECOWAS, it has become attractive to insurgents, because of the warfare strategy which says you can win a war without fighting. The best way to do that is to attack the strongest point of the enemy. If you do that, you have weakened it. Nigeria consists of 60 per cent of ECOWAS in population with the strongest economy among ECOWAS member-states. It is multi-ethnic and multi-religious. These two factors are the fault lines that can be exploited by the enemy. It is attracted by the cross-border criminals who engage in arms trafficking, human trafficking and drug trafficking and it has extensive long borders with Niger which is very porous and easily penetrated.
‘’Nigeria needs to manage its relationship with Niger, because this current relationship is being exploited by all kinds of groups, including arm traffickers. As it is today, there are 40 million of firearms in the hands of non-state actors in the Sahel. Out of these, 11 million are in the ECOWAS sub-region. This is scary.
‘’Nigeria possesses extensive swats of forests that are ungoverned. Also, it is attractive because it provides a safe haven for this group. Once these groups manage to penetrate into the Benin Republic, I want to guarantee that the whole of our Western borders from Badagry to Sokoto would be vulnerable to attacks. The major goal of these groups is to penetrate all the coastal states of ECOWAS . If they take the strongest point, which is Nigeria, through the weakest link, they will get Ghana.
‘’We must get our act together, especially now that the Multinational Joint Task Force is weakened by the fact that Niger has pulled out of sector one where it protects ,and Chad has pulled out of Sector 4. Those sectors are vulnerable. This is one of the reasons we have activities along the Northeast, especially in Borno State’’.
In his remarks, Prof. Osaghae said: ‘’We have seen the extension of this discussion along those lines which clearly show that the externalities of the Sahel may be more crucial than we have ever reckoned with and Nigeria must also be prepared along these lines. These things are being highlighted in the manner of early warning signals so that they can be tracked and taken seriously’’.
In his remarks, Prof. Adebola Ekanola said Nigeria needed to come up with a holistic approach to address the dynamics involved in order to effectively mitigate the effects of the threats in Nigeria and the Sahel region.
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