Also published in Daily Trust
Though during his recent visit to Riyadh,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, President Muhammadu Buhari made a rather ambiguous
statement, which some reporters interpreted as Nigeria’s rejection to join the
newly formed Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT), he
later made it clear during his subsequent visit to Doha, State of Qatar, that
Nigeria had indeed joined the military coalition.
Given the unmistakable religious identity of
the military alliance, and the longstanding, albeit largely politically
motivated, rivalry between the two main religious adherents in Nigeria i.e.
Muslims and Christians, President Buhari’s statement has, ever since then,
continued to generate controversy over the justifiability or otherwise of
Nigeria’s decision to join it.
After all, in Nigeria where political tussling
revolves around trivial things that hardly address real issues and ideas,
politicians, vested interests and individuals with personal agendas do often
exploit and manipulate situations like this in pursuit of their individual and
collective interests. For instance, though already settled, the issue of
Nigeria’s memberships in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the
Islamic Development Bank (IDB), both based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is, from
time to time, still being unnecessarily raised by some politicians and other
public figures pursuing some political and other selfish interests.
The unfounded allegations that, by
joining the military alliance, President Buhari is undermining Nigeria’s
secular status in favour of Muslims, or that he is unnecessarily interpolating
Nigeria into the Saudi-Iran rivalry quagmire, and other unfounded worries
insinuated by some Nigerian elites and peddled by the gullible, are simply part
of such trend of unnecessary politicization of irrelevant and trivial issues
for personal interests.
Now, to start with what warranted the
formation of the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT) in the
first place, it’s pertinent to point out that, though Muslims and Muslim
countries suffer the most from nefarious acts of some terrorists who
unfortunately happen to be Muslims, also, though they (Muslim countries) are
largely individually engaged in wars against the terrorists albeit with various
degrees of success, depending on the extent of their respective military
capabilities, yet, they are persistently accused, by the international
community, of not doing enough to defeat the terrorists. In fact, some of them
are even accused of complicity in the persistence of terror activities. While
diplomats, officials and leaders of some countries make such accusation
indirectly and diplomatically, for obvious reasons, many controversial private
but influential individuals make it quite bluntly.
Meanwhile, as the intricate global politics
continue to bedevil the supposed global war on terror, which consequently
renders it (the war) increasingly ineffective; terrorists continue to
perpetrate increasingly organized acts of terror around the world.
This is what basically warranted the formation
of this military coalition for Muslim countries to take matters into their own
hands, and prove their commitment to take the lead in the fight against
international terrorism.
Therefore, as one of the worst affected
countries by terrorism, Nigeria shares the fate of the other terror affected
countries in different parts of the world. Also notwithstanding the progress it
has, so far, made in its fight against the Boko Haram terrorists, it certainly
needs to do more in order to be able to eliminate them for good. After all,
Nigeria must not settle for anything less than a complete victory, which
necessarily entails the complete elimination of the terrorists.
However, for Nigeria to achieve this, it
obviously needs to not only significantly increase the tempo, the intensity and
the scale of its military operations against the terrorists, but it also needs
much more intelligence capabilities and better coordination with friendly
regional and international intelligence agencies, especially considering the
terrorists’ growing dependence on guerrilla warfare tactics, and their
complicated international network of fellow terrorists and sympathizers.
One simply needs to critically look at the
current terror-triggered security crisis and threat in Nigeria in the context
of the similar situation in the Sahel sub region and its link with
international terrorism, on the one hand, and Nigeria’s obviously limited
intelligence capabilities, which are though relatively the best in the region,
on the other, to realize the imperative of Nigeria participation in this
international military coalition, which is made up of the worst terror affected
countries, many of which also possess much better military and intelligence
capabilities, experience and expertise to share with Nigeria in this regard.
It’s also pertinent to note that, Nigeria’s
involvement in this alliance doesn’t mean it will send troops to Syria, Yemen,
Iraq etc to fight terrorists. After all, when Aljazeera’s Martine Dennis asked
President Buhari recently in Doha if Nigeria would send troops to Libya (which
is relatively close to Nigeria geographically) to fight terrorism, President
Buhari made it clear that Nigeria could only consider this step when Nigeria is
‘approached’ as he stated, which means only when Nigeria is directly
threatened. Nigeria, therefore, has a lot to benefit from its participation in
this military coalition, which will certainly and greatly help defeat the Boko
Haram terrorists for good.
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