Military action alone can’t defeat war on terror- Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari in a statement delivered on Tuesday at the Global Leaders’ Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism organised by President Barack Obama on the sideline of the 70th United Nations General Assembly in New York said military action alone would never be enough to end terrorism and extremism around the globe.

He said good governance, transparency, accountability and rule of law, are some of the best ways to start the process of ridding the world of terrorism.
He said while Nigeria acknowledges the efforts by the UN and the international community to tackle ISIS, a lot more needs to be done.

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.

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“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 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 the 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.”

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