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31.07.2015 Feature Article

The Trans-Sahel Death Lobby And The Coming African Disorder

The Trans-Sahel Death Lobby And The Coming African Disorder
31.07.2015 LISTEN

The boisterous sea storm of Nigerian politics has finally receded from campaign rhetoric. No longer allured by the blandishments of the patriotic press, Abuja has opted out to rather depart from the exchange counters of the local sellers of war bonds against Boko Haram. Forcefully, since president M. Buhari wore the mantle of commandant in chief, Boko Haram has returned as hard-edged chaos-maker within the region. Boko Haram slaughtered 406 Nigerians in Buhari’s 36 days in office.

This radicalized al-Qaeda affiliated cell had slaughtered at least 750 people since May 2015. Relentlessly stalking swathes of violence and displacing entire communities, the radical insurgents are now exporting terror across the region.

Understandably, the trans-Sahelian collective mood is running out of patience about gaining the upper hand against global extremism. Both radicalized insurgent cells in Mali as well as in Nigeria, are still by far lethal and expanding beyond their traditional birth site. Strikingly over-zealous on the whip of regional power, Chadian anointed military seers were betting for a quick military victory over terrorism in the Sahel region.

Against all expectations, Boko Haram had deported its camps to N’djamena, making it an impossible challenge for Chad to withstand obnoxious military opinions. So far, Boko Haram suicide bombings and raids have killed 53 Chadian and displaced peaceful village settlements on their own territory. In July 2015 alone, suicide bombing led by Boko Haram killed 60 peoples in Cameroon.

Yet, from Kidal to Maroua, national armies seem to be wallowing unscrupulously in a prolonged warfare tactics tutorial against global terror. Meanwhile, the trans-Sahelian region is devolving into a shatter belt zone of instability and disorder. The Trojan Horse is within our city walls. Regional military coalitions are slowly coming out of their dogmatic slumber to an unpleasant nightmare. Overcoming global terrorism has become a shopping list of maximum high costly demands. Chasing jihadist groups disseminated throughout the Sahel region is an endless lifetime occupation. It is resource and troops consuming with no victory to celebrate about.

Assuredly, with Boko Haram and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the trans-Sahel death lobby is born. As their standard signature, these radical insurgents brought urban guerrilla in cities and crowded marketplaces. The Achilles’ heel of these insurgents is never to be disconnected with the local population as they deny to themselves a permanent terrain or physical base. Questionably enough, today’s fashionable remedy against global terrorism bears the hallmarks of the much-touted “enemy-centric” strategy through troops coalition build up.

This very enemy-centric approach to combating global terrorism in the Sahel is a secure highway to a brilliant failure for the African military. African military organizations were designed to fight the 20th century’s linear battlefields. As such, they are ill prepared to overcome the masters of urban guerrilla warfare. Traditional warfare has become obsolete with the end of battlefields in this age of global terrorism. A new breed of military befitting a new era of warfare is a prerequisite for peace and security in Africa. Welcome to a new brave world!

Narcisse Jean Alcide Nana is the author of a newly released book on military strategy and geopolitics,Virus Militarisés (Edilivre, Paris, June 2015)

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