Nigeria must accept it cannot defeat Boko Haram alone -UN

The United Nations envoy for the Sahel region has said Ni­geria must accept it cannot defeat Boko Haram fighters alone and work with regional armies in a new multinational force.

Hiroute Guebre Sellassie spoke in the Ethiopian capi­tal, Addis Ababa, ahead of the African Union summit holding tomorrow. “It is time to take action and to be aware of the danger of Boko Haram for the entire African conti­nent,” she said.
Nigeria’s National Secu­rity Adviser, Sambo Dasuki had on January 23, told the BBC’s Newday programme that: “Nigeria does not need the help of UN or African Union to take on Boko Ha­ram.”
But Sellassie told AFP that “Nigeria cannot handle the problem alone, Boko Ha­ram is not only confined to Nigeria. We see a flood of refugees to Niger, Cameroon and even Chad,” warning of a possible training camp in northern Mali.
“The Sahel is increasingly affected,” she said. The AU is expected to discuss at the summit a proposed regional force of some 3,000 troops that would include soldiers from Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Chad and Cameroon.
AU chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma had on Mon­day said she was “deeply horrified” at the rise of Boko Haram, warning the group is “not just a threat to some countries, it is a threat to the whole continent.”
Meanwhile, a top United States military commander has taken a swipe at Nige­ria’s response to the “em­boldened” militants, warning that turning the tide against the militants will require a “huge” international effort.
Another “big focus” was to bolster the country’s intel­ligence gathering, said the head of United States Africa Command, David Rodriguez. He said, Boko Haram’s gains on the battlefield are cause for concern and “the number of people displaced is just stag­gering.” “I think it’s going to take a huge international and multinational effort there to change a trajectory that con­tinues to go in the wrong di­rection,” Rodriguez said at an event organized by the Cen­ter for Strategic and Interna­tional Studies, a Washington think tank.
“The Nigerian leadership and Nigerian military are go­ing to have to really improve their capacities to be able to handle that.” Rodriguez said the Nigerian military’s response “was not working very effectively and actu­ally in some places made it worse.” He added: “I hope that they let us help more and more.”
In a visit Sunday to Lagos, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was “prepared to do more” to help Nigeria counter Boko Haram.
The United States was working with Nigeria to build a comprehensive strategy “across the board, not just military,” that encompassed education, economic devel­opment and health care to ad­dress the needs of the popula­tion in the north, the four-star general said.