…Calls For Mutual Respect, Partnership In Tackling Menace
Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation has said that terrorism in Nigeria is multifaceted and requires mutual respect, partnership and cooperation in addressing it.
The organisation noted that adopting the conventional ‘war approach’ is not the way to solve the terrorism challenge currently going on in Nigeria.
A press statement on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Jare Ajayi, stated that in conventional war, the ‘enemy’ could be identified in terms of location and other signifiers.
He maintained that terrorists in Nigeria, though not invincible, are not easily identifiable because they mingle with the people who would later become victims.
The statement reads, “As such, the approach to defeating terrorists in Nigeria requires tact, hard-track intelligence, diligence, commitment and sincerity on the part of those deployed to fight them”.
Ajayi added that Afenifere issuing this second statement on the same subject within a short interval was due to the speed with which American President Donald Trump is pursuing his goal of attacking Nigeria ostensibly to come and rescue Christians who he alleged are facing extermination.
Afenifere called on those who are fascinated by the US-planned strike to think twice, as bombs hardly discriminate between the guilty and the innocent, especially when they are in the same spot. What should be encouraged is intelligence gathering that would facilitate the identification of desired targets and enable direct engagement with minimal collateral damage.
“It’s undebatable that Christians and adherents of other faiths need to be protected in Nigeria. So are people who are being terrorized by those who want to take over their ancestral lands. Thus, the approach should be a total war on terrorists who prioritize resources over faith. In the same vein elders in various communities where the menace is rampant should swing more into action”.
According to the Afenifere spokesman, there’s an aspect of the New York Times’ report that is alarming. The paper had reported that because of the feeling that limited air operations alone are unlikely to resolve Nigeria’s prolonged insurgency, there’s the possibility of resorting to ‘a full-scale campaign – similar to those in Iraq or Afghanistan’.
“Going by the aftermath of US’ interventions in those countries (Iraq and Afghanistan), only the enemies of Nigeria would wish for a similar thing to happen to her (Nigeria).
“Rather than toeing that path, Afenifere prefers intelligence/information sharing, training in modern surveillance and where necessary, limited airstrikes or drones (as contained in Plan C, ‘light’ operation) to deal with this multifaceted challenge.
“We believe that toeing this path with sincerity of purpose will achieve the desired objective of routing out terrorists and insurgents. We strongly believe that there’s no need whatsoever to launch “full scale campaigns similar to those in Iraq or Afghanistan”, the statement added.
It went further to state that what happened to countries where America has carried out ‘full-scale campaigns’ is undesirable. Countries like Vietnam, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya to mention just some.
Ajayi added that rather than the outright military path, better interests would be served by following the established principle of sovereignty based on strategic mutual cooperation, diplomatic engagement, genuine commitment to protecting citizens who are law-abiding, regardless of the faith they profess as well as a veritable determination not only to hold terrorists and their sponsors accountable but to defeat them completely
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