Nigeria and other West African countries battling terrorism will receive support from a standby force to be formed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The regional economic block expressed worries about the deepening terrorism in the Sahel region.

It unveiled plans yesterday to raise $2.4 billion for the establishment of the standby force.

ECOWAS Commissioner in charge of Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, broke the news in Abuja yesterday.

He said: “If you look at our region, it is being ravaged by terrorists. Today, Burkina Faso has overtaken Afghanistan as the most-terrorised state on earth and Africa has become home to terrorist organisations.

“Elsewhere in the world, there are opportunistic terrorists attacks like we saw in some countries not too long ago.

“We are faced with the nightmare of having one of our member states being completely occupied by terrorist groups.

“If they set up a front base in one country then no country is safe, and we have already seen the impact of that on some of the coastal countries – Benin, Togo, Ghana and Cote d’voire– over the past few years.”

The ECOWAS commissioner, however, said Nigeria has been able to degrade the Boko Haram terrorists.

“In Nigeria, thanks to the efforts of the Nigerian Government, Boko Haram has been degraded to the extent that they do not post a sustainable threat to the peace and security of Nigeria,” he said.

Musah spoke at the opening of a three-day consultative meeting of Commandants of the three designated ECOWAS Training Centres of Excellence.

The three centres of excellence are the National Defence College (Nigeria); Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (Ghana) and Ecole de Maintien de la Paix Alioune Blondin Beye (Mali).

The consultative engagement is a bi-annual event coordinated by the Directorate of Peacekeeping and Regional Security of ECOWAS.

END.