International Relations analyst Prof Christopher Isike has dismissed suggestions that the United States (US) airstrikes against ISIS targets in northwest Nigeria violates African sovereignty.
The US Africa Command says the strikes were carried out in coordination with the Nigerian authorities.
The Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar confirmed it was a joint operation that had been planned for a while.
Isike says terrorism is a global issue and that Nigeria needed to end this fight that has been going on for a long time.
He says, “The Nigerian state has not been very serious in dealing with this issue for the last 15 years. They’ve been toying with this particular problem and have shown an inability to actually deal with it because of complicity of people in government, sometimes people in the military, who have shown to be in cahoots with the terrorists.”
Isike adds, “Terrorism is a global problem. It is one that requires cooperation, intelligence sharing between states that are affected and other states in the world that are interested in helping to fight the menace of terrorism, that’s how I think we should view this.”
VIDEO | Full interview with Prof. Isike:
-Reporting by Kholo Tefo.
