By Shu Zhang
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama told a summit meeting of African leaders that good governance must be “part of the recipe” for their countries to fight against increasing terrorist activities across the continent, and that all the counterinsurgency efforts must avoid alienating particular ethnic groups or religions.
“One of the best inoculators against terrorist infiltration is a society in which everybody feels as if they have a stake in the existing order, and they feel that their grievances can be resolved through political means rather than through violence,” Obama said at the news conference after the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. August 4-6.
In Africa, three prominent terrorist groups – Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab in Somalia and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in the Sahel region – have brought together a group of smugglers and kidnappers-for-ransom to seek controls over the continent via guerilla and terrorist tactics.
In April, Boko Haram, the grassroots terrorist group whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” abducted nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls. Four months later, only about 60 of the girls have managed to escape and the rest remain missing, according to media reports.
A July story in the New York Times estimated that al-Qaeda affiliates in northern Africa, Somalia and Yemen have made at least $125 million from kidnapping since 2008, including $91.5 million that has been paid to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
“Africa’s trouble spots take place over an immense geographical swath of hostile territory with no governmental presence, ruled by warlords and other non-governmental clans,” said Albert Goldson, director of Indo-Brazilian Associates LLC, a New York-based global advisory firm.
“Tracking down terrorist groups in these lands is, for lack of a better expression, cost effective because it’s time consuming and expensive to maintain reconquered vast territory. Obtaining agreements amongst non-terrorist warlords and clans are difficult because alliances are always shifting,” he added.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan sent a letter to Nigeria’s parliament in mid-July asking to borrow as much as $1 billion from foreign institutions to aid Nigerian security forces in fighting Boko Haram, according to Nigeria’s Premium Times.
In the letter, the president said, “I would like to bring to your attention, the urgent need to upgrade the equipment, training and logistics of our Armed Forces and Security services to enable them more forcefully confront this serious threat.”
However, the extensive criticisms and questions of the bad management of Nigeria’s defense budget and corruption within the government may make it hard for the country to borrow money.
The United States already partners with the African Union, the Economic Community Of West African States and individual countries to build up their capacity to deal with terrorism in Africa. But the president also said, “the United States doesn’t have a desire to expand and create a big footprint inside of Africa,” in the summit news conference.
“The U.S. response in Africa is limited and currently restricted to a supportive role rather than ‘boots on the ground’ or even air support,” Goldson said. “The only way the U.S. would get more directly involved in African affairs is if an oil producing African country is threatened by a terrorist group.”
