Insecurity, Peace : Permanent Challenge In Central Africa

The President of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadera on March 17, 2023 in Yaounde took over the mantle of the Chairperson of the Conference of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) Heads of State. 
This was one of the key outcomes of the 15th ordinary Conference of the CEMAC Heads of State presided at by President Paul Biya of Cameroon who had chaired the conference for four years running. The Chairperson of the CEMAC Heads of State will have the daunting task of overseeing the implementation of the resolutions and decisions taken during the Yaounde come together. As stated by President Biya during his closing speech, there has been a, “Headway regarding measures to be taken to ensure the continuation of the CEMAC Economic and Financial Reforms Programme, the consolidation of our monetary union, strengthening our structured policies and improvement of the functioning of community institutions.”
President Touadera is also inheriting teething peace and insecurity challenges that have been veritable speed brakes to the advancement and implementation of the diverse development projects in the CEMAC Sub-region.  President Paul Biya during his opening speech acknowledged the precarious situation when he said, “Insecurity caused by internal and cross-border armed groups roaming our Sub-region features among the threats looming over the development of CEMAC.”  Talking about the acute nature of the insecurity situation, he said one of the attacks cost the life of the former President of Chad Idriss Deby Itno. To President Biya, the affected CEMAC States are compelled to make huge sacrifices in terms of security spending.  These are resources that would have been used for internal and community development. 
In actual fact, only Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Congo have apparent peace and security out of the six CEMAC member States. Chad is still grappling to gain internal stability. Both Chad and Cameroon are battling the cross-border Boko Haram terrorist sect insurgency. Though the common enemy Boko Haram has been greatly weakened thanks to the efforts of the Multinational Joint Task Force, the Boko Haram threat still remains as the terrorists do carry out intermittent attacks against villages and defence and security forces.
Cameroon is greatly hit by peace and security crisis for many years now. Besides fighting the Boko Haram terrorists on the battle field in the Far North Region, the country is face...