Boko Haram turning to Africa’s biggest threat: Analyst
Press TV has interviewed Kehinde Sonola, an author and the founder of Westori.com, in London, to get his take on Nigerian military’s decision to relocate a commando base to Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria, to facilitate its ongoing fight against Boko Haram Takfiri group.
What follows is a rough transcription.
Press TV: How much can the relocation of the commando base to Maiduguri facilitate the fight against Boko Haram?
Sonola: Well, this can be seen as a token move perhaps, or will the army be given extra resources to actually fight this so-called battle. Again, it is quite laughable that so-called forces of several thousands, which is what Boko Haram is estimated to be, is causing so much trouble for a national army. It has to be asked again, who is actually funding Boko Haram? Where are they getting their arms from? Is this more of a subtext to sell arms to Africa? If we look at Chad for example, Chad from a lot of the oil money it received recently, spent quite a lot of it on building up its military, it has become this kind of a regional force. So again will this move to northeast help? It remains to be seen. Most people are very skeptical of Nigeria about the government’s motives and how Boko Haram has become such a large entity with so many eyes focused on it. So we have to really wonder what the Nigerian government’s actual plan is.
Press TV: Indeed. Of course [Nigerian President Muhammadu] Buhari visited Germany recently and appealed to world leaders for more help to battle Boko Haram. What is the possibility of foreign intervention in Nigeria?
Sonola: Well, again we have seen this. David Cameron of the UK offering to help, and now this request may be to Angela Merkel. You really wonder why they are doing this. I mean Nigeria has 117 million people. Why would you need outside forces? Surely there is more than enough people in Nigeria itself to fight Boko Haram. A lot of people in Nigeria are suspicious again about who is really funding this and is this a subtext for neocolonialism. Boko Haram were just a force of hundreds, not too long ago, and now they are turning into the biggest threat to the African continent that there has been in a long time. So, I think again we have to really look at what is going on here in regards to Nigeria’s oil wealth and everything else that is going on.
MTM/KA
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