COPAX pledges 50bn Fcfa to support anti-Boko Haram coalition

The extraordinary summit of the Council for Peace and Security (COPAX) Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of Central African States, which was held in Yaounde, has agreed on an emergency aid package of 50 billion CFA francs as support for troops engaged in the fight against the Nigerian Islamic sect Boko Haram and also for the development of instruments relevant to the restoration of peace and security in the Central African sub-region.

President Biya and his wife offered lunch to the 200 delegates who attended the forum at Unity palace. At the time of writing this report, our correspondent in Yaounde hinted that President Idriss Deby is presently visiting wounded Chadian soldiers receiving treatment at the military hospital in Yaounde.

Boko Haram in Nigeria is a child of Nigerian history and the impunity of Northern Nigeria’s Military establishment. Armed conflict is part of Nigeria history. It is also a business which has enriched many.

People including generations unborn learn from history. The savaged brutality meted on civilians and civilian objects in Nigeria pre-exist Boko Haram. These acts of impunity were some of the methods deployed by successive military regimes, most of them from Northern Generals to accede and sustain power.

The ongoing slaughter by Boko Haram follows the same pattern which in 1966 led to the Nigeria/Biafra War. The underlying cause of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Southerners, mainly of the Ibo ethnic groups in the North was never comprehensively investigated if at all.

There is no gainsaying that the crimes been investigated would have pointed to some powerful individuals within the Nigerian Military structure of Northern origin.

For these, political power and control of the economy could only be attained through, scapegoating communities whom they perceived as serious competitors.