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Africa Must Tackle Terrorism Once and For all – Rawlings

Former President, H. E. Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings has charged African countries to strive to tackle terrorrism once and for all so as to focus our attention back on national and regional development.

According to him, the attention of the African continent has been shifted to defence and security, much to the detriment of socio-economic development and as a result is inevitably leaving Africa at a disadvantage with her growing numbers.

The Former President was speaking at the International Symposium of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso organised by the Centre of Strategic Studies in Defence and Security on the Theme: Prospects for Security in the Sahel-Saharan Strip: What Efficient Strategy?

The African continent he explained covers more than 20% of all the land mass on earth with more than half of the world’s natural minerals and resources but remains distracted by Terrorism.

”If Africa were to unite and make good use of her resources properly, she would have the 7th largest economy in the world with a GDP of $2.39 trillion,” he noted.

He bemoaned the situation whereby African Governments are forced to be preoccupied with this phenomenon of terror on the continent instead of focusing on how to build the continent by making the utmost use of it’s natural resources, fight against the pillaging of these resources, provide better healthcare, education, roads; or build a resilient economy.

Former president Rawlings said that terror activities on the continent have grown rapidly with an increase in not only the number of terror attacks occurring, but also the count of countries affected by such activity.

He however recalled In January of last year, when Burkina Faso was faced with the biggest nightmare of having to deal with a terrorist attack at the Cappuccino restaurant and at the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou where 30 people were killed and 176 taken hostage.

”Five weeks ago, this city again had to endure another painful experience when an attack was mounted on a Turkish restaurant and a hotel, killing 18 and injuring 25. We cannot also forget the terrorist activities that occurred in Côte d’Ivoire just last year, when gunmen opened fire near the L’Etoile du Sud Hotel, which was full of expatriates, nor the attack on the Ambassador Hotel in Mogadishu”, he added.

 

Source: otecfmghana.com

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