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West African Leaders Vow to Wage a War on Boko Haram
The group has killed more than 3,000 people in its war to establish an Islamic state in mostly Muslim northeast Nigeria. Biya said he would send more means and troops to the north, but that Boko Haram had been picking soft targets and outnumbering his troops. Nigeria has complained the far north of Cameroon is being used by Boko Haram militants to shelter from a Nigerian military offensive and to transport weapons, and has urged Cameroon to tighten border security.
Jonathan said there was a “misconception” in the relation between the two countries over crossing each others borders and that this would now be ironed out. A Western Diplomatic source said, “The main outcome is that the region is now aware of a problem that for a long time was considered an internal Nigerian problem. Abuja has accepted to go beyond its borders.”
Highlighting that, the source said Nigeria, which sits on the 15-member U.N. Security Council, had agreed in principle to ask for Boko Haram and its key members to be placed on a U.N. sanctions list, as has been the case with other militant groups such as al Qaeda. Wendy Sherman, the Under Secretary for the Political Affairs, in the US, stated: “The world is aware of these young school girls who were abducted, but quite frankly Boko Haram has been creating havoc for sometime. … We are all coordinated, we are all focused, this doesn’t stop at borders, terrorism does not know borders and so we’re going to work in a collective manner to get the job done.”
Source: CNBC Africa
