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n the latest report released Wednesday, Iraq is ranked first, a
position it has held since 2014. Afghanistan has ranked second
since 2013.
Our Reporters
Nigeria, for the fourth consecutive year, occupies the third
position among countries worst hit by terrorism, globally,
according to the 2018 ranking on terrorism. This has been blamed on
the activities of Boko Haram and herdsmen.
Fulani herdsmen kill 5 in Plateau
villages
Apart from 2014 when Nigeria was ranked fourth, it has remained
in the unenviable third position in the Global Terrorism Index
(GTI) ranking since 2015.
Mixed reactions have trailed the report. While former vice
president and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential
candidate, Atiku Abubakar, said the country’s ranking in terrorism
shows the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) failed promises,
the APC said report was far from reality.
In the latest report released on Wednesday, Iraq, a country in
the Middle-East, is ranked first, a position it has held since
2014. Afghanistan has ranked second since 2013. Syria and Pakistan
are ranked fourth and fifth respectively.
Others among the top 10 countries worst hit by terrorism in 2017
are Somalia (6th), India (7th), Yemen (8th), Egypt (9th), and
Philippines (10th).
The good news, however, is that there has been a reduction
in the number of deaths caused by terrorism in Nigeria in 2017,
just like the other three preceding years, according to the
report
“When compared to the peak of terrorist deaths in 2014, the
largest falls in
the number of deaths occurred in Iraq, Nigeria, and Pakistan, with
falls of 6,466, 5,950, and 912 deaths respectively,” said the 2018
GTI report.
The report said deaths from terrorism in Nigeria fell to 1,532
in 2017, a decrease of 16 per cent from the prior year.
There were 63 per cent and 34 per cent drop in deaths in the
country in 2016 and 2015 respectively, according to the report.
“This highlights the effectiveness of the counterinsurgency
operations undertaken in Nigeria and its neighbours, Cameroon,
Niger, and Chad,” the report said, adding that the world has also
experienced a drop in deaths from terrorism in 2017.
The GTI, while analysing global trends in terrorism in 2017,
described the reduction in deaths in Nigeria and Iraq “the
most dramatic.”
Boko Haram attacks, the report said, have substantially reduced
in Chad and other neighbouring countries; and Al-Shabaab, in 2017,
overtook Boko Haram as the deadliest terror group in Sub-Saharan
Africa.
The GTI report raised concern over the killings by herdsmen,
saying terrorism was shifting from Nigeria’s North-East region to
the country’s Middle-Belt.
The report said: “In Nigeria in 2018, there has been a dramatic
increase in violence involving Fulani extremists even as
deaths committed by Boko Haram are falling.
“In 2018 alone, deaths committed by nomadic Fulani herders are
estimated to be six times greater than the number committed by Boko
Haram.
“In 2017, 327 terrorism deaths across Nigeria and Mali were
reportedly committed by Fulani extremists, along with 2,501
additional deaths in the three years prior with the vast majority
of these deaths being civilians.
“While deaths (killings) committed by Fulani extremists
decreased following the peak of 1,169 deaths in 2014, violence from
the group in 2018 is expected to surpass that peak. Nearly 1,700
violent deaths have been attributed to the Fulani Ethnic Militia
from January to September 2018. An estimated 89 per cent of those
killed were civilians.”
According to the report, two, out of 20 most fatal terrorist
attacks, occurred in Nigeria. One was on March 20, 2017, when
assailants identified as “Fulani extremists” opened fire at a
market in Zaki Ibiam, Benue State killing 73 people. The other was
on July 25, 2017, when Boko Haram terrorists opened fire on a
Frontier Exploration Services team convoy at Jibi, killing 60
people.
The GTI, which is in its sixth edition, is produced annually by
the Institute for Economics & Peace, an independent, non-partisan,
non-profit think tank with offices in Sydney, New York, and Mexico
City.
Reacting to Nigeria’s rating, former Vice President Atiku has
described this as a function of the failure of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) to keep its campaign promises to Nigerians.
Atiku, who is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential
candidate for the 2019 polls, said it was unfortunate that the
present administration could not deliver on its campaign promise to
secure the country.
Speaking through his media aide, Paul Ibe, the former Vice
President noted that that is the more reason Nigerians cannot take
the APC serious in the run-up to the 2019 polls.
According to him, “it is very clear that this coincides with the
era of the APC led administration. Again, it is also a confirmation
of their failed promises. They have failed on economy. They have
failed on alleviating poverty. They have again, failed on security.
Then
you ask yourself without security, what can we do? That explains
why every nook and cranny – the North West, the North Central, the
North East, the South South – everywhere is a theatre of one war or
the other.
He said: “It is not about promises. It is about policies. That
is why we are different from them. You look at the well articulated
policy, which Atiku has reeled out; it is a framework, and Nigerian
are interrogating it. And security is an integral part of it.”
In its reaction, the APC has dismissed the report, describing
it as rating faraway from the reality on ground.
According to National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mallam
Lanre Issa-Onilu, the rating was wrong, stressing that Nigerians
who are on ground have the accurate rating.
Said he: “We cannot join issues with people far away from the
reality. Nigerians have their own rating because Nigerians who
could not move freely in Abuja before the APC came in have their
rating. The residents of Abuja formerly perpetually under fears of
insurgents attack have their ratings. People of the North East have
their own rating because they understand the difference between
when they could not even live in Borno or Yobe and Adamawa states
and now. They know that insurgency has been degraded to the extent
that they don’t have any community under their control.”
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