ISIS: Buhari urges world leaders to look beyond military solution

President Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday, said that better results would be achieved in the global war against Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and violent extremism if the threat was addressed from the source.
Accordingly, he posited that the fundamentals of good governance and stoppage of illicit financial flow from countries with weak anti-theft structures to others parts should not be ignored.
Buhari made this assertion while addressing a forum of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on the theme: “Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism.”
According to the Nigerian leader, anything that would constitute any form of attraction for young people to join such nihilistic organisations should be utterly discouraged by leaders, so that their recruitment source could easily be cut off.
He said: “Nigeria notes with satisfaction the efforts of the United Nations and the rest of the international community to contain ISIL. We certainly need to do more. We need to take military action combined with effective border security, intelligence collection and sharing, and vigorous policing action.
“These alone may not suffice, but they can certainly stem the tide and reverse the process of recruitment, movement and effective operation of foreign terrorist fighters and their associated radical extremists. In order to put in place the critical components of an effective approach to countering ISIL and eventually defeating it, we must address the threat from the source.
“We must find a way to prevent young people from turning to terror in the first place. And the young people that turn to violent extremism do not exist in a vacuum; they are often part of the communities and families and are lured into the fold of barbaric and nihilistic organisations, somehow, through a misguided appeal to their worst fears, expectations and apparent frustrations.
“While addressing the causes of this attraction and how to deal with them, we should pay close attention to other manifest factors that may not be tangible but can be crucial. Good governance, which entails transparency, accountability and rule of law, remains the basis on which we should kick-start the process of ridding the world of the menace of terrorism and violent extremism.
“The international community will be required to work together to deter and disrupt illicit financial flows from nations with weak anti-theft structures to other parts of the world.
“Where such funds are identified, the victim state should be assisted to recover them fast.
President Buhari also noted that “groups like al-Qa’ida and ISIL exploit the anger that festers when people feel that injustice and corruption leave them with no chance of improving their lives. Member states need to address local socio-economic grievances by formulating policies that would ensure broad-based transformation through job creation, equalisation of opportunities and expanding access to social services.”
He said African leaders needed to also rededicate ourselves to uphold the mandate of the African Union Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and other good governance initiatives that they had adopted in the region, to encourage conformity with political, economic and corporate governance values.
Buhari equally pointed out that the increase in violence and terrorism by ISIL and other groups had enticed and emboldened insurgent groups in Africa.
He recalled that the Boko Haram terrorist group, operating in the Lake Chad Basin area, which is currently on the Al-Qaida sanctions list, pledged its allegiance to ISIL in March 2015, as a ploy to gain support and assistance from foreign groups and fighters.
“While we believe that Boko Haram action is an indication of the weakening operational capability of the group, it could also suggest that it was a strategic move to attract foreign fighters into its fold, and obtain assistance from ISIL. Certainly, whatever the reason was for the declaration of allegiance, one thing is certain: Boko Haram terrorist group wants to be drawn into the centre stage of global terrorism.
“This development has led not only to a shift in strategy, but also to changes in ideology, recruitment and propaganda methods by Boko Haram. Its recourse to mass executions and public beheadings in the style of ISIL became notoriously widespread after its declaration of allegiance,” the President pointed out.
Wondering why the rigorous enlistment process coupled with the UN legal framework had not stemmed the tide of their flow, the Nigerian leaders asserted that “ISIL is a serious threat to international peace and security and should be treated as such.”