Boko Haram attack in the north. File PHOTO by AFP
Islamic State jihadists in Nigeria pose a ‘growing threat’ to the security of Britain, the Defence Secretary has warned. This situation gets worse as Nigeria prepares for a major election next year in which ethnicity and religion have become the motivation for the contest.
The UK Daily Mail reports that British troops are training local forces in a push to crush a wave of terror in the region which could spread to Europe.
The Jihadists have devastated the north eastern parts of Nigeria and have occasionally pushed their way into other parts of the country now afflicted by the fever of election.
The jihadists say they want to make Nigeria an Islamic state. Britain fears that if they push through their agenda, they might launch major attacks on Britain why has strong ties with Nigeria.
There are fears that, if left to fester, Islamic extremists in Africa could establish a caliphate across the region, as IS did in parts of Iraq and Syria, and plot attacks on the West.
The threat in ravaged north-eastern Nigeria comes from Boko Haram and splinter group Islamic State in West Africa, which has pledged allegiance to IS.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has visited British troops deployed on a counter-terror training mission in Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno state, where Boko Haram control swathes of territory.
Speaking from a military base, Mr Williamson said: ‘When we look at it more broadly, when we look at the greater threat, organisations such as Boko Haram or Daesh [the Arabic acronym for IS] do not respect international borders.
‘We see that as a potential and growing threat to the United Kingdom.
‘By dealing with the threat here in Nigeria, it keeps the streets of Britain safe as well.’
In 2014 Boko Haram kidnapped 276 Chibok schoolgirls in Borno. It is believed more than 100 are still being held.
Meanwhile, French News Agency, AFP, reports that in Burkina Faso, a country struggling to contain jihadist violence, education is one of the victims of the insurgency, with hundreds of schools closed, teachers in hiding and pupils kept indoors over the fear of attacks.
In the conflict-ridden north, more than three years of assaults and threats by radical Islamists have led to the closure of more than 300 schools, according to estimates, with the east of the West African nation now also seeing school closures.
“They (the jihadists) are slowly killing education,” said Kassoum Ouedraogo, who used to teach in a primary school in the small town of Nenebouro, near the border with Mali.
One of his colleagues was murdered in 2016 and last year teachers felt the security threat was so dangerous that they shut the school.
Ouedraogo moved to the northern regional capital Ouahigouya where, he says, he “lives with fear in his stomach”.
“They do not want ‘French’ schools… they want schools in Arabic,” he said, describing how teachers have been threatened by Islamists angry about “Western-style” education.
“(I used to) stay with villagers so that they could not find me so easily,” Ouedraogo said, who considered the accommodation provided by the school unsafe.
