The U.S is a major beneficiary in the war against Boko Haram – Expert

Dr. Helmy Chaarawi, Director of the Afro-Egyptian Center for African Studies, has said the United States of America is a major beneficiary in the war against Boko Haram in Cameroon and Nigeria.

“I am going to talk to you about the superpowers’ international interactions within Africa. You can quote me,” Dr. Chaarawi noted December 1, after having been introduced to participants taking part in a training course for young African journalists, organized by the Union of African Journalists, UAJ, with support from the Egyptian government.

The expert in African Studies told pressmen that Western manipulation of Africans dates far back to the colonial period. He said that after independence and the World War of 1945, Russia and the West continue to use different policies in Africa, the most recent of which is the policy of “constructive chaos.”

Chaarawi said though it might sound like a conspiracy theory, the “constructive chaos” policy of the West is implemented when they generate chaos so that countries rush to them for support and then get indebted to them to the point that they are obliged to be partners in international trade; especially in the oil sector.

“When Nigeria gets help from the US to fight against Boko Haram, they become loyal to the US and channel their natural resources to the West,” he said.

Quizzed on whether the same applies to Cameroon which was recently obliged to host 300 US troops assisting in the fight against Boko Haram, Chaarawi said: “See for yourself; what do you think is happening. Americans enjoy as the conflicts spread. They sell guns, seal oil deals and extend their military fortress when these things happen. But I am not saying that they are necessarily directly behind the attacks.”

Though avoiding being conclusive on the involvement of the West in Boko Haram and other terrorist activities in the Middle East, he pointed out how Nigeria had become a heavyweight in the ECOWAS block, with an influential army and economy but the West plotted to weaken the country and Boko Haram seems to be doing the dirty work.

Commenting on the recent shooting down by the DAESH terrorists, of a Russian plane over Cairo, where all 244 passengers on board were killed, he disclosed that it later emerged Western powers had received and concealed information about a possible attack, but kept the information from Egyptian and Russian forces which could have averted the incident. He urged journalists to investigate the on-going war in Syria to connect the dots and uncover the whole game plan.

The director of the Afro-Egyptian Center stressed Africans must rekindle and fortify Pan African ideologies, stop competition among themselves in order to compete with Western powers.

He also noted that countries which were under looked by the West, such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa have formed a block with Russia and are coming up with a bank that would compete with the World Bank – currently used by the West to control nations.

He urged African countries to equally create a unified block, as attempted in the past when Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba were fighting for the freedom of their countries from western stranglehold.

He re-echoed the words of the chairman of the northern Africa regional trade and marketing block, Cherif Al Khoreibi who had earlier drilled journalists on the effectiveness of Afro-Arabic economic conferences in regional cooperation and development.

He cautioned the young African journalists to read between the lines when getting information from western media.

To Khoreibi, “information is the most dangerous weapon, more dangerous than nuclear weapons.”

The course, running from November 28 to December 17, is being attended by journalists from some 20 African countries, including, Cameroon, Nigeria, Namibia, Uganda, South Africa, Sudan, Chad, Congo, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ethiopia, Congo Brazzaville, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, DR Congo, among others.