Irbard Ibrahim is a security consultant and social commentator
• Boko Haram has been a terror in Nigeria for years
• Irbard Ibrahim thinks Nigeria can resolve the matter on their own
• He says other countries can support in diplomacy only
Security consultant and social commentator, Irbard Ibrahim, has offered reasons as to why Nigeria as a country should be able to unilaterally deal with its long-standing issue with the terrorist group, Boko Haram.
According to Irbard, historical incidences in the region have seen collective efforts to deal with them because of the nature of those unrests.
“The region is responding to the insecurities challenges, to begin with, the Boko Haram. There are two classifications of security challenges: you have a conventional security challenge and you have an asymmetric one. Any time it is conventional like the war in Liberia and Sierra Leone, then they can come together and say let’s contribute soldiers – ECOMOG, then you go in, we exchange artillery gunfire and then we topple the bad guys and make sure that there is a civilian government,” he said.
Speaking with Nii Akwei Ismail Akwei on The Lowdown on GhanaWeb TV recently, Irbard Ibrahim described the peculiar difference between the modus operandi of the Boko Haram in Nigeria, as compared to others in the region and why it will be difficult for the same strategies to be applied to it.
He also explained that due to that, it should be enough for Nigeria to deal with its fight with the insurgent group while adding that other countries like Ghana can only support it with morale and diplomacy.
“But Boko Haram is an amorphous group; it adopts hit and run tactics and so you can’t tell the line of leadership, and even if you want to negotiate, who do you sit with? And so it has become very difficult so there is only one peacekeeping mission within West Africa. It is the MINUSMA [Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali] that is to resolve the Azawad efforts in northern Mali. But we can’t deploy to Nigeria because Nigeria is a bit broader.
“It will be a dent on the military credibility of Nigeria that you need soldiers from tiny countries like Ghana to be able to fend off. America supports materially with intel because of the satellite assets they have within the region, maybe trainers and all that but Nigeria alone should be able to resolve the Boko Haram issue,” he said.
The Lowdown shows on GhanaWeb TV on YouTube on Mondays.
Watch the interview below: