Resuscitating ECOMOG Against Boko Haram

Boko Haram sect, no doubt, has become a house
hold name not only in Nigeria, but in the entire West African sub-region and indeed, the world.
The notorious terrorist group has claimed responsibility for several attacks leading to the death of many Nigerians, irrespective of religious and ethnic affiliations.
It is on record that the Boko Haram sect was established in 2002 while its major attacks came to lime light in 2009.  A careful examination of the name, Boko Haram, shows that the sect is averse to western education. The word Boko, for instance, refers to book and by implication western education.  Haram, on the other hand, means forbidden or prohibited
It has become extremely difficult to dialogue with a group that is opposed to western education even when there is empirical evidence of Muslims who not only acquired western education but have taken advantage of same to improve society.
Nigeria today has muslims who have made invaluable contributions to national development in the areas of science engineering, agriculture, administration and diplomacy upon their attainment of western education.
In fact, the achievement of universal primary education is listed as goal two in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations (UN) hatched during its summit in year 2000 and Nigeria cannot afford to shut itself out of the eight-point development agenda of the UN.
Worse still, the sect began bombing churches and later mosque and today Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for bombing other public buildings and public places such as market place, bus stop and schools.
The one that probably broke the proverbial camel’s back is the abduction of over two hundred female students from a high school in Chibok  north-east Nigeria.
The Federal Government, through its armed forces,  has been making frantic efforts to save the girls from their abductors in the past one month.
Again, the abduction and safety of the Chibok girls have elicited nationwide and global condemnation.
For instance, President of France, Francoise Hollande hosted a summit of regional leaders from Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon last Saturday to midwife a regional coalition against terrorism in the West African sub-region.
Addressing the summit, President Goodluck Jonathan described Boko Haram as an integral part of AI-Qaeda network that has grown beyond opposing western education to a full blown terrorist group.
President Jonathan further said: The group is hostile to democracy, uses every means to indoctrinate its members with the ultimate objective to destabilize the country”.
According to him, “since 2009, we have had to contend with many attacks and killings which have now developed into a full-scale war targeting the stability and integrity of our nation and using vicious guerilla campaign against government and the people of Nigeria.
To this end, the regional summit convened by President Francoise Hollande of France agreed to institute sanctions against Boko Haram, Ansaru and other terrorist group within the framework of United Nations.
Interestingly, affected regional leaders of Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon committed themselves to synergizing efforts against terrorism, through increased information sharing and trans-border surveillance.
The communique issued specifically tasked affected countries to establish an intelligence pooling unit and create a dedicated team to identify means of implementation of framework against insurgency.
Interestingly, France, the United States of America, Britain and the European Union have all pledged to mobilise donors in support  of programmes designed to foster social and economic development of regions concerned with issues bordering on equality and the rights of women and girls.
Besides, the participants agreed that the United Kingdom would host a follow-up summit in June 2014 at ministerial level to review progress on action plan.
In addition to support from the international community, one strategy that may be necessary in the fight against terrorism may be to revive the moribund West African special interventionist armed forces ECOMOG which was initiated to restore peace in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the nineties.
Intelligence remains strategic but a regular combatant military force must be ready and available to launch attack based on intelligence reports gathered.
This is necessary as member-nations who took part in the regional summit in France are to contribute soldiers in consonance with the Lake Chad Commission.
Nigerians and indeed Africans must own the fight against insurgency the way they owned and were united against colonialism and imperialism.
Nigerians must eschew all forms of politicization and religious antics designed to banalise the activities of Boko Haram.
Above all, the suspected masterminds in police custody must be prosecuted and culprits made to face the law to deter others.
It will be recalled that President Jonathan, while in  France over the weekend, described Boko Haram members as enemies of democracy and this observation should not be treated with levity.
This is because a reprisal attack by families of victims could trigger doom for the nation under mine the growth of democracy.
It is pertinent to accentuate the fact that terrorism is an organised crime and Nigerians must be organised to overcome the menace of Boko Haram.
The time is now.
Sika, a social commentator, writes from Radio Rivers, Port Harcourt.

Baridorn Sika