Fayemi, Tambuwal call for global attention on insecurity in Africa

Gov Fayemi making his presentation at the Crans Montana Forum for Africa in Brussels, Belgium.

Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, have drawn global attention to insecurity in some parts of the African continent, saying that tackling insecurity in the continent requires an urgent intervention of  world leaders.

Both Fayemi and Tambuwal spoke in Brussels, Belgium, on Friday at the opening session of the  Crans Montana Forum on, “The Impact of Sahelo-Saharan Crisis on African Security, Economy and Political Stability.”

Governor Fayemi, who was one of the main speakers at the forum, spoke on the Boko Haram perspective to insecurity in parts of Northern Nigeria. He told the audience that included world leaders, representatives of governments, Ministers of foreign affairs, security experts, diplomats, Peace Scholars and policy makers, not to classify the conflicts in Africa as one and the same for all the states.

Governor Fayemi posited that some of the conflicts were political, economic and religious in nature,  adding that each conflict should be isolated and tackled.

He, however, admitted that a common factor in all the states was that they had “weak state structures,” which allowed terror suspects to operate easily. “To find solutions therefore, there has to be a holistic and international response.”, He added.

The Governor said: “Nigeria went to Mali because it felt that it must intervene in order to arrest the crisis in that country from spreading more than it is doing already,”

For Nigeria, Fayemi noted that the Boko Haram menace gained momentum because the government had not demonstrated the seriousness to identify and penalise the suspects to serve as a deterrent.

Fayemi who did a thorough analysis of the Boko Haram menance in Nigeria, identified three strands of Boko Haram namely: “Economic Boko Haram”, “Political Boko Haram” and “Religious Boko Haram.”

The governor claimed that out of the three, the economic Boko Haram was more devastating because lack of economic opportunities had made it possible for those with political and religious agenda to exploit an army of idle hands to recruit for their selfish intentions.

Speaker Tambuwal, who chaired the session, observed that the crises in the Sahelian region, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya and Sudan as well as Boko Haram in Nigeria were issues that required global efforts to address instead of reducing them to problems for the affected countries.

He commended the organisers of the forum for “providing a platform where people from across the world come together to discuss how to make Africa a better place to live.”

The Speaker said:

“Being the emerging economy that we all agree that it is,  the security upheavals in Africa, especially the Sahelian region, has to be addressed. We have to discuss and proffer solutions to the problem.”

Last modified: March 9, 2013