Editorial: Marginalisation, root cause of terrorism in Africa!.

Speaking on Monday at the African Counter-Terrorism Summit in Abuja, Nigeria, UN Deputy Secretary General, Amina Mohammed, said: "The epicentre of terrorism has shifted from Middle East and North Africa into Sub-Saharan Africa, concentrated largely in the Sahel...the region now is accounting for almost half of all deaths from terrorism globally".

In concord, the President of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, said terrorism cannot exist in the same space as good governance.

“Its goal is to cause such havoc that we will doubt our democratic principles, putting societies and governments into such confusion and disarray that we begin to fight amongst ourselves, instead of fighting the very thing that seeks our destruction,” Tinubu said.

“Already, terrorism has taken too many lives and delayed our better future for too long. While terrorism troubles us greatly at the moment, we do well by remembering terrorism is not of Africa. We must tell this imported evil that wants to bend and break us that it shall not succeed. Instead of making us bow, we shall banish it,” he added. 

“The fight against terrorism requires a comprehensive approach. We must address the root cause of extremism such as poverty, marginalisation and social injustice. However, these important facts should not become empty rhetoric devoid of meaning or action. While we seek to address the root cause of terrorism, we must also attack the root that feeds this evil branch. Evolving from the tactics of yesterday, terrorism is becoming a greater threat as it perfects ways to continuously finance itself, reequip, resupply itself for its sinister mission. Not only does it kidnap people, it kidnaps precious resources, billions of dollars that a legitimate government should be using to sculpt a better society by providing education, healthcare and food for its people now to pay for weapons and mayhem," Tinubu said. 

But why is terrorism finding a fertile ground in Africa? Why is it killing more people in the continent than the global total, if it is an imported crime?

Why should African governments bragging about their independence, sovereignty and "internal affairs," be pleading with the "international community" to come to its aid in fighting terrorism as Tinubu insisted?

Is it the international community "marginalising" Africans who are taking up weapons against their corrupt, tribalistic, undemocratic and self-serving governments?

Within the continent, there has been an African Union Ministerial Committee on Counter-Terrorism as envisaged in the Declaration of the 16th Extraordinary Summit of the African Union Assembly.

The body’s key role is to ensure that a high-level forum of government officials meets regularly to assess counter-terrorism efforts and provide advice on how to combat it. 

Unfortunately, the bodyhas not been meeting.

More importantly, solving the root causes of terrorism, which have been established at the anti-terrorism summit in Abuja as marginalisation and bad governance, should be a priority.

It is that marinalisation that led some people in the North West and South West Regions to take up weapons against the regime in Yaounde.

What many African countries, like Cameroon, for instance, have not succeeded to accept, is that another citizen's freedom fighter could be considered by government as a terrorist.

That may explain why the international community has often preferred to call separatist fighters as "non-state" fighters, despite their often barbaric, putrid and primitive atrocities.

Such disagreements on classification often make it difficult for the international community to come to countries where authoritarian regimes stick to power till death do them part.

As pointed out at the African Anti-terrorism Summit, terrorism may be imported, but the root causes are rooted in each country. 

They are spreading in Africa, which is the most undemocratic continent in the world.

With the democratic evolution in the continent, we at The Guardian Post think it is time for African politicians to look inward to solve their problems, rather than always finding excuses for their failures, by blaming the "international community" and turning around to lobby for peanut assistance from same international community. 

African governments should solve the terrorism tantalising problems through justice, the rule of law and equal opportunities for its citizens where their absence breeds terror.