The European Union (EU) member states have announced plans to deploy a new mission comprising of police and soldiers to West Africa in the fall, a German newspaper Die Welt am Sonntag reported on Sunday, citing diplomats.
The newspaper, while reporting the development, said that the mission is a combined military-civilian operation aimed at preventing instability triggered by terrorist groups in the Sub-Saharan region.
The mission in the West African Gulf of Guinea will see police and soldiers deployed to Ghana, Togo, Benin and Ivory Coast after formal approval is given by EU foreign ministers at a meeting in October in Luxembourg.
The report stated that the mission will aim to train and advise local security forces, help prepare for anti-terror operations, give technical support and implement confidence-building measures in the security sector.
The reason behind the planned mission is the EU’s concern that Islamist groups “could extend their activities in West Africa from the Sahel zone toward the southern coastal countries on the Gulf of Guinea, leading to even more widespread instability in the region,” the newspaper reported.
The EU cited extremist activities linked to Islamic State and Al-Qaida that affected countries like Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as Russian influence in the region, vis-a-vis Wagner mercenary group, as part of the motivating factors for the mission.
The mission, however, suffered some complications after Mali sent French and German forces that had been training their soldiers and police packing.
The report, meanwhile, showed that Benin and Ghana had already officially invited the EU to deploy the mission on their territories.
According to analysts, the mission may likely suffer severe set-back as several countries in the region have fallen under military governments following coups, Mali, Niger Republic and Burkina Faso, the latest being Gabon today.
Western powers have tried to goad the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS to force Niger Republic back to democratic rule through military force, a move which has been vehemently resisted by Niger and their Mali and Burkina Faso allies.
Reacting to the development, an analyst, J. C. Okechukwu, taking to his twitter handle, @jcokechukwu, wondered what is EU’s interest in deploying police and soldiers to African soil.
He asked: “They’re deploying “Police and soldiers” on African soil? The mission will be launched after formal approval is given by EU foreign ministers?
“Benin Republic and Ghana had already officially invited the EU to deploy the mission on their territories?
“If you have followed my reporting long enough, you must have heard me say it over and over again, that Africa is the new Ukraine for them.
“One of the first reports I published over the Niger crisis detailed what you’re now reading in this exclusive report.
“I made it clear that this is all about the battle between Russia and the west and the fact that Russia has chosen to throw its weight behind Africans in their quest to break loose from colonial enslavement.
“The battlefield has shifted and if you ever doubted that, there you have it.
“The effrontery to send police and soldiers to our continent when we are not living in slavery era is enough to help you see what an incredibly historic time we live in, as Africans.
“It’s a generational turning point. The west is losing big. Everywhere you turn, they’re losing.
“Even their own World Bank just reported that Russia’s GDP has surpassed that of Europe amidst sanctions! And now they’re also losing Africa, which has been their sole provider.
“It’s fight to finish and God will not forgive anyone on the continent who makes it easy for colonizers to continue to entrench themselves on the continent of Africa.”
Okechukwu, therefore, called on Africans to wake up en masse, be vigilant and stop what he termed “maniacal arrogance”.
He said: “Africans! Let’s wake up en masse and be vigilant. This has got to stop! If we were treated so well, there would be no Russian Wagner on the continent of Africa.
“To beat Africans for generations and tell them not to cry is the height of maniacal arrogance.”
He expressed confidence that Africa’s time has come and that no force on earth can defeat an idea whose time has come.
“Africans will resist this with everything in them,” he believed. Read more.
—
©Copyright 2023 News Band
(Click here for News Band updates via WhatsApp, or Telegram. For eyewitness accounts/ reports/ articles, write to elstimmy@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook.)
