Fighting Boko Haram

The Chibok girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram a year ago. And many other Nigerian girls and women have also been taken hostage by this terrorist group. Everyone condemns these actions. But we should go beyond that and ask loud and clear how can that happen in a country that has one of the largest and better African equipped armies. How is it possible that a terrorist group has been able to capture people and territory? And then, we need to raise another question: where did they get the weaponry from?

Chad and Niger have now been engaged in the fight against Boko Haram, side by side with the Nigerian Army. There have been reports of some serious setbacks for the terrorists. But as of late one gets the impression that the anti-Boko Haram coalition is no longer making any tangible headway. Why is it?

The missing people and the memory of all those who have been executed by the savages under the banner of Boko Haram call for an answer to all the questions. They also call for clarity about the situation. 

Chadian army ordered to fight Boko Haram

The good news is that the Chadian army has now been ordered to move into the Boko Haram area and fight the terrorists. The Chadians are by far the best army in the region. They certainly can achieve some results.

Now the point is to see if the Nigerian government is prepared to accept such deployment within its territory. I hope they will. And it should be possible because there is already a cooperation framework between Chad, Nigeria and Niger with the aim to fight terrorism around the Lake. But this is a time for elections in Nigeria and some politicians might think that the Chadian intervention might signal to the voters that the national authorities cannot do what the Chadians can. Let´s hope that will not be the official position in Abuja. 

Fighting Boko Haram is a priority

We should not lose sight of Boko Haram. They are a major threat to the populations of the region and to stability in Nigeria and the Lake Chad part of Africa. The government of Nigeria has no capacity to respond to the menace. We should be very clear about it. And engage the authorities in Abuja with an offer of international security assistance that makes sense and cannot be ignored. This has now become a matter of great urgency. Concerted multilateral action and the appropriate pressure on the national authorities of Nigeria should be made as soon as possible, even before the presidential elections of this coming February. Then, just after the elections – which by the way will be pretty messy –deployments should take place. The poor populations of remote North-eastern Nigeria need all help they can get. And this is not neo-colonialism. It´s solidarity and also the recognition that further destabilisation of Central Africa and the Sahel will have a negative impact well beyond the region. 

Boko Haram in Paris

Today´s summit on Boko Haram, convened at the Elysée Palace by President François Hollande, should be seen as a constructive initiative. 

The concrete results in terms of fighting the Nigerian terrorist group might be very tiny. But it had some other advantages.

 It kept the pressure on the President of Nigeria. President Goodluck Jonathan must take the issue with a greater degree of seriousness. 

It also showed that the countries in the region – particularly Cameroon and Chad – must be fully engaged and cooperate among themselves. This is lacking. Especially as it concerns Cameroon. North Cameroon – an area I know relatively well – is a forgotten region, when seen from the capital Yaoundé. This has to change. The Cameroonians have to increase their police and armed forces presence in the North. They have also to be prepared to cooperate with Nigeria and Chad. 

The summit has also emphasized that the problem requires international cooperation if it is to be tackled without further delay. France can certainly play a role on the French-speaking side of the region. The UK has to be more involved on the Nigerian side. And French and British intelligence services have to work hand in hand on the ground and be willing to treat the African counterparts as equals.

All this is a bit of an ambition. Not easy to achieve. But it has to be said. And the pressure has to go on.

We will see what progress will be reported as accomplished when the ministers meet for a follow-up conference next month in the UK. 

Gulf of Guinea

Piracy is becoming a serious threat to the freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Guinea, in West Africa. The Nigerian Navy has arrested, during the first quarter of 2014, 37 vessels that were engaged in illegal activities at sea, most of them related to piracy attempts.

Now, a major naval exercise has been launched in that Gulf, at the initiative of the Nigerian government. 10 Nigerian ships, plus a task force of 14 foreign war vessels are now engaged in a joint exercise. The neighbours of Nigeria are part of the exercise as navies from Europe and the US. For a total of 21 nations. This figure shows the importance of the menace and the level of cooperation that has been established to address it.

It is rewarding to see Nigeria taking the lead. This is a case of good news coming from that key African State. 

Ransom payments

A few years ago, when I was based in N’Djamena, I visited the Waza National Park, in Northern Cameroon on three different occasions.

The Park is located in a desolated corner of Central Africa. The main road between N’Djamena and Waza is a very strange place. You feel desperately isolated over there. It is a Cameroonian road that has seen better days. If you stop your car and walk to the right hand shoulder of the road you are in Nigerian territory. If go off road to the left you soon hit the Chadian border. On both sides you meet from time to time a few villages where life is tough and as arid as the land. And at certain times of the year, you come across the nomad people known as Mbororo, a subgroup of cattle-herders linked to the Fulani ethnic group. Actually, it is much easier to see their cows in the Waza National Park than wild animals.  

It is not a place for mass tourism.

This was the place however where a French family was kidnapped a couple of months ago. The parents and their children, plus another male relative, had been on a visit to the park. They were then taken by force across the border into Nigeria. At the time the media said they had been hijacked by the terrorist group Boko Haram. Maybe, maybe not, as there are other armed bandits in the region.

The fact of the matter is that the family was released without a fight and in very unclear circumstances a couple of days ago. The French government, including the President himself, were very much at the forefront of this liberation and made sure the media coverage was as good as it gets. And they were quick to deny that ransom money had been paid.

I want to believe so. I also know that up to very recently the French authorities used to pay – and deny it – for the French nationals that had been kidnapped in Africa to be set free. That was a very wrong approach to the problem. That was the best way to encourage the bandits expand the business and to look for more victims.

But is it a better approach to put a lot of political pressure on the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria for them to make a nice gesture and open the prison gates to a good number of incarcerated people who happen to be connected to the kidnappers?