Citizens Over Terrorists

Following the 9/11 attacks, the US and its allies launched a global war on terror, aimed at degrading, dismantling, and defeating Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for masterminding the attacks against the US.  This war was also rooted in a preventive policy strategy, to stop the terrorists from being able to stage future attacks from Afghanistan.  The global war on terror, which has been costly, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands and costing trillions of US dollars, has also seen the rise of various jihadist terrorist groups. Some of these groups have ties to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, across different parts of the world including Africa. What does this mean for the future of peace and security in Africa’s largest country Nigeria, known to have suffered significantly at the hands of Boko Haram in the past two decades? One might wonder, why Nigeria? However, writing in the Financial Times, in August 2021 President Buhari aptly captured the need to prioritize Africa and, therefore, Nigeria, as the new frontier of the global war on terror, given the unfolding events in Afghanistan.