President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has called on leaders of the global community to put into full effect the provisions of Chapters Seven and Eight of the UN Charter and provide proportionate support to Africa’s fight against terrorism and violent extremism.
According to him despite the considerable economic difficulties confronting ECOWAS Member States, 11 members out of the 15 Member States of ECOWAS, the four military-led States having been suspended, have made clear their willingness to take the fight to the terrorists, if they were sufficiently empowered.
“Comparisons, they say, are odious, but some cannot be ignored. The Russian war on Ukraine has elicited, according to my information, some US$73.6 billion in American support for Ukraine, US$138.8 billion from the European Union and its institutions, and US$14.5 billion from the United Kingdom,” he said.
The President continued, “On the other hand, the security assistance from the US, the EU and the UK to ECOWAS have, in total, in the same period, amounted to US$29.6 million.”
With the right amount of support to ECOWAS, he was certain that the terrorists “can be chased out of West Africa and the Sahel too. Foreign troops would not have to be involved. West African troops can do the job. The Accra Initiative is a good example of indigenous self-help.”
President Akufo-Addo was speaking on “Democracy and Security in West Africa”, at the United States Institute of Peace’s Programme on Governance and Peace, on Thursday, in Washington D.C., U.S.A, when he made this known.
Explaining the emergence of terrorists in West Africa, the President noted that “the terrorists, as we all know, were chased out of the Middle East and Afghanistan before taking refuge in Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, from where they fled across the Sahara to find refuge in northern Mali after Gaddafi’s downfall.”
They have, since then, he intimated, “spread their pernicious influence eastwards and southwards, and with the coastal states of West Africa their ultimate destination.”
Citing rising levels of displacement of populations in many parts of the Sahel due to the insecurity
engendered by the armed groups, President Akufo-Addo, who has been a 2-term Chairman of ECOWAS said, “Africa has become the centre of attraction for terrorist groups which are multiplying in the region, following defeats suffered in other parts of the world.”
In the face of marked successes chalked, he stated that, the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on developing countries, has unfortunately, “left many countries and regional bodies, particularly in the Sahel, in very dire economic situations. This has compounded the challenges we face in the mobilisation of resources to fight terrorists in our backyards.”
