The Director, Centre for China Studies, Mr. Charles Onunnaiju, Wednesday, said the inflow of light weapons, and the escalation of insecurity in the Sahel region, and in Nigeria, are the fallout of the invasion of Libya in 2011.
Onunnaiju spoke in Abuja at a dialogue on China’s global security initiative and the implication over security challenges in the Sahel and Nigeria, which was aimed at how Nigeria could maximally engage the outcomes of the just concluded Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022.
He noted that the development had also seriously fueled political instability in Mali and Burkina Faso, which had led to the return and the establishment of military regimes in the two countries.
“The violent overthrow of the legitimate government of Libya in 2011, with the active connivance of the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and the subsequent assassination of its leaders, Colonel Ghaddaffi, was the crucial enabler to the chain of destructive insurgencies, banditry and other forms venal criminal activities that have engulfed the Sahel region and Nigeria.
“The conflict in the Sahel inspired by extremist insurgency has fueled political instability paving the way for the return and establishment of military regimes in Mali, and Burkina Faso, two countries in the Sahel, caught up in the murderous backlash of the violent regime change in Libya, promoted by the US-led NATO.
“…The immediate consequences of the collapse of the Colonel Muammar Ghadaffi government in Libya is the flow of light weapons and military instructors which have fed insurgencies in the Sahel in West Africa, with Nigeria as a principal victim where extremist insurgency has mutated to violent criminal activities of banditry and kidnapping’’, he said.
Onunnaiju, however, called on the Federal Government to leverage on the goodwill of the Nigeria-China bilateral cooperation to scale up more productive partnership in the security sector.
Also speaking, the Head of Political and Public Affairs Section, Chinese Embassy in Nigeria, Mr. Du Sheng, called on Nigeria to explore the bilateral multilateral exchange to address security challenges.
On his part, the former National Secretary of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD), Professor Udenta Udenta, who said the need for human survival was one of the factors for the rising insecurity, called for the adoption of the knowledge-driven approach.
Also, a former Director-General of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Professor Joseph Golwa, linked insecurity to corruption, and poverty, and advocated a broad-base communication approach to tackle the menace.
