Hussein Solomon. That the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is spreading into Africa is increasingly self-evident. This is a worrisome development given the fact that whilst north Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia) are overwhelmingly Muslim, one-third of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is Muslim[1]. The spreading of ISIS’ tentacles in Africa is taking place at a time when religious intolerance is on the rise on the continent with a concomitant rise in terrorist incidents. Nigeria’s Boko Haram, alone, has carried out more than 1,000 attacks since 2010 which has resulted in the deaths of 10,000 people…
Author: CASADE
Nigeria’s military said it would “crush” rebels in the nation’s crude-producing region after oil companies evacuated non-essential workers due to the deteriorating security situation. The armed forces are aware of a new group in the Niger River delta “who have vowed to cripple economic activities,” Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar said in a statement on Tuesday. “The military will employ all available means and measures within its rule of engagement to crush any individual or group that engages in the destruction of strategic assets and facilities of the government.” A resurgence of attacks on oil infrastructure caused Nigerian production to drop…
Helene Cooper and Dionne Searcy. Less than two years after it blocked a sale of American-made attack helicopters to Nigeria from Israel because of human rights concerns, the Obama administration says it is poised to sell up to 12 light attack aircraft to Nigeria as part of an effort to support the country’s fight against the Boko Haram militant group. But the pending sale of the Super Tucano attack warplanes — which would require congressional approval — is already coming under criticism from human rights organizations that say President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has not yet done enough to stop…
Three countries—Israel, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom (U.K.)—have enacted social and economic development policies to inhibit a resurgence of terrorism within their jurisdictions. The efforts of these countries demonstrate the potential benefits and short- comings of using social and economic development as a counterterrorism tool. In each case, social and economic development initiatives were considered integral parts of wider peace processes: In Israel, the Paris Protocol of Economic Relations, which provided Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) with various economic and trade incentives, accompanied the 1993 Oslo Accords for establishing the Palestinian Authority (PA). In…
Human rights law requires the State to take steps to protect the right to life – which includes measures to prevent terrorism. However, any measures taken to counter terrorism must be proportionate and not undermine our democratic values. In particular, laws designed to protect people from the threat of terrorism, and the enforcement of these laws, must be compatible with people’s rights and freedoms. Yet, all too often, the risk of terrorism has been used as the basis for eroding our human rights and civil liberties in Britain: • From 1969 to 2000 Parliament passed a number of temporary Prevention…
If President Muhammadu Buhari is recently proud of the outcome of the war against terrorism in north-eastern Nigeria, he has good reasons to be, for under his watch the Nigerian military has regrouped, and neighbours in the Lake Chad Basin are collaborating more meaningfully with Nigerian forces in implementing a more effective military response to Boko Haram’s threat in the rural areas where the jihadist group remains potent. Other international partners are also supporting the effort against the insurrection that has since 2009 cost tens of thousands of lives, uprooted millions, and destabilized other Lake Chad Basin states by damaging…
DONALD WINCHESTER. In the wake of recent terror attacks, Western society has jumped to an easy and, it might seem, obvious conclusion. Seeking to eradicate terrorism means discovering the motivations of the terrorists. Not a difficult task, many would say. The perpetrators of the attacks on Glasgow, London, Bali, Madrid, New York and other places have all claimed inspiration from their religion. Osama bin Laden justified the World Trade Center attacks by quoting the Qur’an, while Jim Walker of NoBeliefs.com rejects all subtleties in declaring that “belief causes terrorism.” If religion is the cause, many argue, then surely eradicating all…
Anders Fogh Rasmussen Excellences, ladies and gentlemen. Warm thanks to Professor Oshita O. Oshita, from the institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for the kind introduction. I would also like to thank professor Ifediora. As Director of the Council on African Security and Development he has been instrumental in setting up and organizing this conference. It is in indeed a pleasure and a great honor to be here today. A special thanks to University of Wisconsin and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for organizing this conference – dedicated to one of the key challenges of…
Ben Oppenheim. Over the past decade, community development, a program design that inverts standard foreign aid models by putting the poor in charge of shaping and implementing development projects, has reemerged as a central mechanism for the delivery of aid in conflict zones.2Although hard figures are limited, a few data points indicate that community development’s overall growth has been rapid: from 1989 to 2003, the share of World Bank projects with a community development component rose from 2 to 25 percent of the total portfolio; by 2007, more than 9 percent of World Bank spending went to community interventions.3 Community development…
As Africans, and Nigerians in particular, grapple with the various manifestations of growing pains – population overflow, dwindling natural resources, bureaucratic corruption, and burdensome bureaucracy, the debilitating sectarian violence and insurgencies of recent years make these growing pains even more painful. From West Africa to East Africa, Boko Haram and al-Shabab remind Africans and the global community that all is not well in the African continent; that ethnic divide, religious tensions, cultural differences, bad governance, and the scramble for Africa’s natural resources by foreign interests have brought about immense transformational impulses and pressures that are beyond the institutional capacities of…