Central Africa to join fight against Boko Haram

Nigerian Soldiers in Hong

The Economic Community of Central African States on Monday sought to collaborate with the Economic Community of West African States to fight the Boko Haram Sect.
ECCAS made this known on Wednesday at a meeting with Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport in Abuja.
Representing ECCAS were President Denis Sassou N’Guesso of the Republic of Congo and President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of the Republic of Equitorial Guinea.
President N’Guesso told journalists after the meeting that discussions included the Ebola crisis and the security challenges – particularly ravaging the West and Central Africa regions.
He said all three leaders condemned the insurgency, its destructive activities such as indiscriminate killing of peoples and the wanton destruction of properties, the abduction of innocent women and children, especially young school girls, who might have been turned to sex slaves.
Mr. N’ Guesso said they had come on a solidarity visit as well as to work out modalities on how to assist Nigeria combat the issue of Boko Haram.
“We will study the situation together and put in place a security architecture to see how we can coordinate all our actions to put out and eradicate the Boko Haram, which has been spreading in a very grave manner. We look forward to peace, security and development in Africa,” he said.
The ECCAS delegation is expected to proceed to Ghana for further consultations with Ghanaian President, John Mahama, who is also the chairman of ECOWAS.
The meeting with President Jonathan is coming on the heels of a meeting held in Cameroon’s capital city, Yaounde, where representatives of ECCAS committed to spend $86 million to fight Boko Haram. Nigeria, who was to be an observer was however absent at the meeting.
“Like you know at the last meeting of the Africa Union, the Heads of State took some very important decisions principally to check the Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroun and Chad.
“Following the meeting of the African Union, the Economic Community of Central African Countries had a meeting recently in Yaoundé to address particularly the Boko Haram challenge in Africa and to see the possibility of ameliorating the grave situation. It’s on that platform that we met with our friend President Jonathan of Nigeria.
“We are here because we have been mandated by the Heads of State of the Central African Community to be here, and show our solidarity to the people of Nigeria and the government of Nigeria, and to our brother and friend, President Jonathan”.
“And after here, we are on a mission to Accra to meet with President John Mahama of Ghana, who is the Chairman of ECOWAS,” said Mr. N’ Guesso.
He said the ECCAS would use all political, military and diplomatic efforts to disarm Boko Haram. “We have no doubt that we have arrived at a mechanism for coordinating all our actions for effectiveness,” he said.
He commended the President Jonathan as well as the security forces for the recent successes recorded in overcoming attacks by Boko Haram.
“We hope that the framework that we are going to put in place will give us a better and more effective result against Boko Haram”.
Boko Haram crisis that has bedevilled the North-Eastern past of Nigeria spilled into neighbouring nations, notably Cameroon, Niger and Chad. The three neigbouring countries recently formed a military alliance to fight the group whose ideology is basically against western education.