Leadership US Move On Boko Haram Sparks Uncertainty By: Ezra Ijioma, Bayo Oladeji, NSE ANTHONY-UKO, Adesuwa Tsan, Kingsley Opurum, Agency Report on November 14, 2013 - 4:45am The United States government has announced the designation of the violent Islamic group, Boko Haram, as a foreign terrorist group. It also gave a splinter group of Boko Haram, Ansaru, the same tag. But the designation has raised concerns among Nigerians on what the extra scrutiny from US law enforcement officers in search of sponsors and financiers of the group will mean for travel plans, ease of transacting business and transferring funds across countries. With this announcement made yesterday by the US State Department, members of Boko Haram and Ansaru could be tracked down anywhere in the world by US law enforcement agents and their partners and prosecuted in the US. Also, the designation is significant because it directs US law enforcement and regulatory agencies to block business and financial transactions with Boko Haram, which is fighting to impose Islamic law on northern Nigeria and has ties to al Qaeda. It makes it a crime under US law to provide “material support” to the group. Although the State Department has already designated three alleged Boko Haram leaders as terrorists, it stopped short of a more sweeping declaration against the organisation. According to the US Department of State, the designation was made under Section 219 of the US Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, and as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224. However, the US cautioned that the designation is “but only one tool in what must be a comprehensive approach by the Nigerian government to counter these groups through a combination of law enforcement, political and development efforts, as well as military engagement, to help root out violent extremism while also addressing the legitimate concerns of the people of northern Nigeria”. The government of Nigeria has not been favourable to this US move because it wants to use local mechanism to address the security issues. In an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP last year, the Nigerian ambassador to the US, Ade Adefuye, listed five reasons why Nigeria told the US Congress not to designate Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organisation. Adefuye said, “To declare Boko Haram as an FTO [Foreign Terrorist Organisation] will mean that Nigeria is not able to deal with Boko Haram, and that is not right. After all, we have dealt with a more focused, more dangerous, better organized protest movement like the Niger Delta movement. “And to designate Boko Haram as an FTO would mean that it will give such psychological boost to Boko Haram among other terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, which can be tempted to embrace them and support them. “Three, to designate Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation would discourage investors from coming to Nigeria because nobody wants to go to an area where a terrorist organization resides. “Four, even from the point of view of the US, they say it constitutes a threat to their interests but it’s not. So if you did not declare Niger Delta [militant groups] an FTO, why are you going to declare Boko Haram an FTO? It doesn’t stand logic or reason.” Finally, he said that labelling Boko Haram a terrorist organisation would expose Nigerians travelling to the US to “horrendous search at US entry points, and we don’t want that”. However, Boko Haram and other splinter Islamist groups are seen as the biggest security threat in Nigeria and even within the Sahel region. Despite a six-month state of emergency declared in three states -- Adamawa, Borno and Yobe -- the group has continued to attack civilian and military targets, leaving hundreds dead. In one of the group’s most recent attacks, gunmen dressed in military uniform shot and hacked to death 19 motorists after blocking the highway leading out of Maidugiri, capital of Borno. State. In August 2011, the group bombed the UN headquarters in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, killing 24 people. In September, it killed more than 160 innocent civilians, including women and children. Boko Haram has also conducted attacks against international targets, including a suicide bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja on August 26, 2011, that killed 24 people and injured dozens more, many of them aid workers supporting development projects across Nigeria. Ansaru’s attacks have focused on Nigerian military and Western targets. In November 2012, Ansaru raided a police station in Abuja, killing police officers and freeing detained terrorists from prison. Also in January 2013, Ansaru ambushed a convoy of Nigerian peacekeepers in Lokoja, Kogi State. The peacekeepers were going to Darfur, South Sudan. Ansaru has also conducted several kidnappings of foreigners living or working in Nigeria. The consequences of the these FTO and E.O. 13224 designations include a prohibition against knowingly providing, or attempting or conspiring to provide material support or resources to, or engaging in transactions with, Boko Haram and Ansaru, and the freezing of all property and interests in property of the organisations that are in the United States, or come within the United States or the control of U.S. persons. The US Department of State took these actions in consultation with the Departments of Justice and Treasury. FG backs US action - AGF The federal government has backed the decision of the US to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist group. Speaking through the attorney-general of the federation (AGF) and minister of justice, Mr Mohammed Adoke (SAN), the government said the action would strengthen its proscription of the sect. Adoke, who spoke with journalists last night, said: “The US stance is a welcome development; we salute the US government for partnering with the federal government to root out terrorism. “This step will assist this nation to deal with these renegades. It will also help in strengthening the proscription of Boko Haram by the federal government. “We urge other super powers to emulate the US government to check terrorism in any part of the world. A threat to any nation by the insurgents is a threat to global peace.” Action won’t have negative impact on economy - CBN The Central Bank of Nigeria said it would not have negative impact on the financial system being that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gave Nigeria a clean bill of health just last month. The FATF had voted unanimously to expunge Nigeria from the list of countries identified as jurisdictions with significant deficiencies in their Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes following the country’s full implementation of the mutually agreed Action Plan and the exhibition of a clear political commitment to continue the development of its AML/CFT regime. CBN director of corporate communications Mr Ugochukwu Okoroafor told LEADERSHIP that the FATF group visited Nigeria, inspected the various reforms processes being undertaken to make the payments system more secure and were satisfied, hence their decision to expunge Nigeria from the list. “Nigeria cards are being used anywhere in the world,” he said. It is a welcome development - DHQ In a swift reaction, the defence headquarters said it is a welcome development, saying that with the position of the United States, the war against terrorism in the country has been given a morale. Speaking through its spokesman, Brigadier-General Chris Olukolade, the defence headquarters said, “It is a welcome development, we hope it will further bring the required international understanding and co-operation to deal with the terrorists. It shows a better appreciation of the security challenges that we are dealing with.” Speaking in the same vein, a serving military general explained that those who support or identify with the two sects risk forfeiting their interest outside the country and they could be picked to face the wrath of the United States. “With this new development by the United States, those who have been flirting with those terrorists risk arrest, investigation and prosecution in America once they are fingered. This is a mortal blow on the two terrorist organisations and all the political colouration of the crisis is over. Whoever is arrested could either be tried here or in America.” A presidency source explained that President Goodluck Jonathan was not unaware of the implication of the designation and this is why he has been appealing to the US against the designation, but the Boko Haram sect has not been helping the situation. “President Goodluck Jonathan has been urging the US against designating the Boko Haram and Ansaru sects international organizations because of the implications against their members and their supporters, but since these terrorists have not stopped attacking innocent people in schools, markets and religious buildings, they asked for whatever happened to them,” he stated. A security source explained that the action of the US would now impose a burden of cooperation on the neighbouring countries “to support Nigeria in her quest to get rid of the terrorists in the sub-region as well as in the whole of the continent”. The source traced the new development to the visit of some American Congressmen and some Nigerians in Diaspora who were in the country to verify the situation by themselves. In the process, they met with some of the victims and the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) who urged the delegates to prevail on the US authorities to designate Boko Haram sect an international terrorist organisation. “What you are seeing today is an outcome of some American Congressmen and some Nigerians living in the US who were in the country recently to meet with some of the victims of the terrorist attacks and they also met with Pastor Ayo Oritsajafor, who led the CAN team. They urged those people to mount the pressure on American government to designate the Boko Haram and Ansaru international organisations. “The likelihood of more hearings on this issue may have been a final straw in encouraging the State Department to acknowledge something which has been apparent for some time - the growing relationship between Boko Haram and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” said US Rep. Patrick Meehan, a Pennsylvania Republican who convened his own hearing on the issue. Meehan chairs a Homeland Security subcommittee, not a Foreign Affairs committee, and has not been briefed by the State Department. “Boko Haram is of growing influence and of major concern,” he said. Last year, the Justice Department’s senior top national security official, Lisa Monaco, sent a letter to the State Department arguing that Boko Haram met the criteria to be listed as a “foreign terrorist” group because, she said, it either engages in terrorism that threatens the United States or has a capability or intent to do so. Monaco is now President Barack Obama’s top White House counter-terrorism advisor. Although the State Department later designated three alleged Boko Haram leaders as terrorists, it stopped short of a more sweeping declaration against the organization. For two years, Meehan and Rep. Peter King of New York have pressed the State Department to put Boko Haram on its list of terrorist groups alongside the likes of al Qaeda and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. They have warned that an August 2011 attack on a U.N. building in Abuja marked a turning point as a threat to US interests. Meehan has noted that the United States did not perceive al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as a threat to US interests until after the attempted downing of an airliner by a Nigerian near Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009. See full media note of state department’s designation on leadership.ng Extension of emergency rule: Reps summon service chiefs Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has summoned service chiefs to appear before the House today to give a brief of the current security situation in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states where President Jonathan is seeking the approval of the House to extend emergency rule that has been in place since May this year. The lawmakers took this decision yesterday after adopting the resolution of a motion on the “extension of the period for the Proclamation of a State of Emergency (Certain States of the Federation)” raised by the leader of the House, Hon. Mulikat Akande-Adeola (PDP, Oyo). Leading debate on the motion which was unanimously adopted without further contribution from any other lawmaker, the leader said the House was fully aware that the president had, in a letter to the House on November 12, 2013, provided a detailed report by the chief of army staff on the current security situation in the affected states. She added that “recognising the efforts so far made by the security personnel deployed to the affected areas in curtailing the activities of insurgents and some security challenges that still exist in some parts of the affected areas and cognisant of the provision of section 305(6)(c) that states the House must pass the proclamation for extension of state of emergency to remain in force from time to time for a period of six months, the security chiefs should give them detailed analysis of the situation on ground. Akande-Adeola recalled, “The Emergency Powers (General) Regulations, 2013, covered the north-eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe”, adding that “by virtue of the provisions of section 305 (6)(c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999,the proclamation will elapse after a period of six months from the date of approval, except the periodic is extended by the National Assembly”. President Goodluck Jonathan had last week written to the House on the extension of emergency rule in the affected states. The Senate has approved the request and, based on the outcome of the meeting of the security chiefs with the lawmakers, the House of Representatives will follow suit and approve the extension.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 07:22:45 +0000
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