West African leaders have agreed to work together to tackle the growing menace of terrorism in the sub-region by providing the much needed financial backing to the campaign. As part of this, the leaders pledged the sum of $1 billion to acquire weaponry and provide training assistance to their military. This was made known yesterday in a communiqué signed after their meeting in Ouagadougou Burkina Faso yesterday. The United Nations warned few months ago that Islamist attacks were spreading so fast in West Africa that the region should consider bolstering its response beyond current military efforts.
Speaking on the development, The President of Republic of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou said that ECOWAS has decided that it is time to take the issue of spiraling banditry and terrorism in the region serious and to match words with action, the member countries have decided to finance the project by contributing 1 billion dollars to the financing of the joint forces and to the reinforcement of the operational capabilities and of state intelligence.
The pledge which is to be funded from 2020 to 2024 was announced on Saturday at the end of the Economic Community Summit of West African States (ECOWAS) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have strengthened their foothold across the arid Sahel region this year, making large swathes of territory ungovernable and stoking local ethnic violence, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.
The fifteen members of the West African bloc and the presidents of Mauritania and Chad had gathered for an extraordinary summit in Burkina Faso’s capital to address the growing insecurity.
President Issoufo blamed the international community for the crisis saying that they are the cause of the Libyan crisis and the Libyan crisis is responsible for the banditry across the Sahel and the Lake Chad basin, thus the need for the region to rise to the occasion and tackle the situation headlong. He added that the Sahel region and Lake Chad expected a bigger contribution in the fight against radical Islamists from the international community which he said caused the Libyan crisis that was putting pressure on the region.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.