Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State claims that some foreign countries benefit from violent conflicts in Africa, and thus slowing down the process of ending the hostilities.

“Africa is the biggest market for Europe and America and Africa must be kept as a market so you can’t allow them to find their feet,” Mr Ayade asserted. “There is an international dimension that is far more complex.”

Mr Ayade made the allegations while responding to questions on a Channels TV programme. He advised that Nigeria should improve relations with Turkey and Israel because according to him, they are not beneficiaries of the insecurity crisis. He emphasised that Nigeria’s terrorism challenges should not be reduced to government inefficiency but must be taken into the context of Africa’s transborder terrorism challenges.

“You have to also realise that Israel and Turkey combination who are not directly involved in the crisis of Nigeria today and who are not beneficiaries of our crisis today can be good partners for discussion,” he said.

“There are certain countries if you go to discuss with them on Nigeria’s issue, they will never listen to you because they are beneficiaries of the crisis we’ve got. There are small countries that have high impact technology that we can benefit by handholding us through the process of this issue

“To dismiss guerilla tactic warfare and terrorism of this nature and reduce it to the inefficiency of government it will be abusing ourselves because it shows that we have not understood the dimensions of international terrorism that has infiltrated Africa with a deliberate intent to reduce from being a civilised continent,” Mr Ayade added.

Nigeria has endured over a decade of Boko Haram/ ISWAP insurgency which has ravaged the country’s North-East with millions displaced from their homes and thousands killed.

The Multinational Joint Task Force continue to engage the ferocious extremists particularly in the Lake Chad region while many insurgents have spilled over into banditry in the North-West and North-Central.