LIVE UPDATES
The Economic Community of West African States said it plan to disburse $2.4bn fund For Counter-terrorism standby force to aid Nigeria and other West African nations in combating terrorism.
This initiative comes as the bloc faces escalating terrorism in the Sahel region.
ECOWAS made this announcement through its regional body’s Commissioner in charge of Political Affairs, Peace, and Security, Abdel-Fatau Musah, at the opening of a three-day consultative meeting of the commandants of the three designated ECOWAS Training Centres of Excellence, in Abuja.
Musah highlighted the severity of the terrorist threat in the region, with Burkina Faso now surpassing Afghanistan as the most terrorised state.
He said, “If you look at our region, it is being ravaged by terrorists. Today, Burkina Faso has overtaken Afghanistan as the most terrorised state on earth, and Africa has become home to terrorist organisations.
“Elsewhere in the world, there are opportunistic terrorist attacks like we saw in some countries not too long ago.
“We are faced with the nightmare of having one of our member states being completely occupied by terrorist groups.”
“If they set up a front base in one country, then no country is safe, and we have already seen the impact of that on some of the coastal countries – Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire – over the past few years,” Musah added.
The commissioner stated that “in Nigeria, thanks to the efforts of the Nigerian Government, Boko Haram has been degraded to the extent that they do not pose a sustainable threat to the peace and security of Nigeria.”
He explained that as part of the resolution of the authority of Heads of State, $2.4bn would be raised to fund the ECOWAS standby force to tackle the security challenges head-on.
The three centres of excellence are the National Defence College, Nigeria; the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Ghana; and Ecole de Maintien de la Paix Alioune Blondin Beye, Mali.
