From a Rawnda’s New Times
Editorial
Public opinion in East Africa is unanimous that terrorism orchestrated by Islamic militants, the Al Shabaab and militias roaming the jungles of the vast DR Congo remains the single biggest threat to security person and property.
The public also rightly believe that if not jointly tackled, terror attacks in any member-country can potentially be dangerous to the core objectives of our integration—economic development.
The question therefore is: What should be done to ensure that terrorist organisations fail in their machinations to make East Africa unsafe for enjoyment of human freedoms and doing business?
Some say, the answer may lie with fast tracking the last stage in the region’s gradual integration process, political federation. A federation, they say, will ensure synergies to deal with this global menace.
While total integration of the region is an overdue proccess that must certainly be reactivated and pursued with vigor and commitments by each nation in the fold, the serious crisis of the moment that needs to be addressed and dealt with however, is terrorism. Terrorism has not only sent shivering cold down the spines on the regions citizens, but has literally chocked the political and economic outlays of each nation, effectively damaging and holding them hostages. As a result, before all else, the nation’s of the region must come to terms and agree to take the folliwing actions:
A. Establish a Joint Crisis Team of professionals composed of various ranks and expertise ; military, security, and civilians.
Appoint a qualified executive who will run the multifaceted Command and Control strike force Project:
Under him, I suggest a not more than three to five project managers to work all of his choosing abd vetting of course.
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Under the five mangers, as many as the job will require elite professional expertise that are very bright and nimble am with history of greater achievements in their track record. They are the ones in charge of various field command structures.
B. The designated executive branch Will then gather its project managers and jointly write the scope like:
1. Admit to have a joint enemy they must pursue and destroy as agreed by the nation states leaders.
2. That enemy is a terrorist organization called Alsabab.
3. Once goals are defined, using Work Break Down Structure (WBDS , a PMBK theory or Project Management Book of Knowledge), gear up and start working on project planning processes. These would include an indepth strategic planning and Control, like capital, budgeting, human power, material resources and technology. I stated these wealth of ideas because whatever the situation is they are core, proven theories of project management that done right, the project has a much larger opportunity to succeed.
Of course, there are a lot of other ideas I didn’t include because they are in the guts of a project while others like change tickets, quality management, suppliers, change and timelines as well are equally important.
In conclusion :
Failure by each member state not to treat terrorism as the most deadly enemy that must be attacked with joinet strategic, military and security power, is calling for Alshaab to hit any of its targets and do it also with impunity.
Trsfaye Mengestu