Lukman Olabiyi
Security expert, Dr Ona Ekhomu, has advised the Federal Government to take urgent actions to counter the infiltration of terrorists from the West African Sub-region into Nigeria. He said that Nigeria’s already dire security situation will be severely aggravated if it is further complicated with attacks by foreign Sahelian Jihadi groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS).
Ona, who is the president of the Association of Industrial Security and Safety Operators of Nigeria, was reacting during the weekend to the intelligence provided by the United States that ISIS and Al-Qaeda terror groups were on the march to Southern Nigeria through the Northwest of the country. He said that the rising spate of terrorist/bandit attacks in the Northwest states of Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Kebbi and Niger was sufficient evidence of the rapid occupation of ungoverned spaces in Nigeria, from where attacks were being launched.
Ekhomu said that since Nigeria’s porous borders have made it hard for the authorities to prevent infiltration into the country by foreign terrorists, the law enforcement agencies should detect and arrest these terrorists once on Nigerian soil.
He described the intelligence from the Americans as “timely, and a wakeup call for the Nigerian authorities to strengthen the security infrastructure of the country. Unfortunately, the terrorists have access to illicit weapons. So, they are armed and dangerous and must be confronted with overwhelming force.”
The security expert called for robust intelligence analysis and decision analysis by the authorities. He argued that a network analysis would reveal that Boko Haram is related to the Talibans, which is related to Al-Qaeda network and ISIS. He characterized ISIS as the most recent incarnation of these violent extremist organizations (VEOs). He said that this network charting was presented in his new book titled, “Boko Haram: Security Considerations and the Rise of an Insurgency.”
He said that the Jihadi terror organizations linked in the network analysis (BH, Taliban, ISIS, AQN) have common goals of repudiating western education and western civilization and proselytizing conversion to Wahabi Salafi Islam or death.
Ekhomu said that the Jihadi infiltration of Nigeria is a clear and present danger. Said he: “It’s a wicked problem. It’s a messy problem. The solution cannot therefore be the product of feeble thinking. This problem requires robust structured analytic thinking for its resolution. I would advise our military and intelligence analysts to use a powerful analytic tool such as morphological analysis.”