Catholic Bishop demands western military action

Boko Haram Fighters

A bishop whose diocese in north-east Nigeria has suffered at the hands of Boko Haram wants the West to send in military forces to defeat the militants according to the Catholic Herald.

Describing how Boko Haram was now recruiting from countries across north Africa, Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri said that Western military intervention was the only viable option in the fight against the militants. In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, the Catholic charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, the bishop said Nigeria’s military was weakened by incompetence, corruption and Boko Haram infiltration within its ranks.

Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri

He warned that drastic action was urgently needed as the attacks earlier this month in the town of Baga showed that Boko Haram was poised to become a threat well beyond Nigeria’s borders and was recruiting from Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Libya.

Bishop Dashe Doeme, whose diocese is the heartland of the Islamist terror group, said: “The West should bring in security – land forces to contain and beat back Boko Haram. A concerted military campaign is needed by the West to crush Boko Haram.”

He said the situation had become so critical – with more devastating Boko Haram attacks last week south of Maiduguri – it demanded a repeat of the French campaign of early 2013 to force Islamists out of parts of Mali, also in west Africa.

The bishop said the attack in Baga revealed the ineptitude of the Nigerian military, adding that incompetent senior officers should be sacked “as a lesson to the others”.

He said: “Among the soldiers, there were sympathisers with Boko Haram – some of them were even Boko Haram members and many of them just ran away.”

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