President Muhammadu Buhari’s trip to the G-7 yielded its first fruits as Germany, France and Canada reaffirmed their administrations’ total commitment to ending Boko Haram’s insurgency in the shortest possible time.
Buhari, who spoke at a meeting with President Francois Hollande of France after his participation in today’s G-7 Outreach Programme, noted that Nigeria would welcome greater support and cooperation from France and other friendly nations for its ongoing efforts to wipe out the scourge that is the Boko Haram and restore full security and normalcy to areas affected by the group’s atrocities.
According to Buhari, although his administration was already taking concrete action to build a more efficient and effective coalition of Nigeria and neighboring countries against the sect, it would be a welcome gesture to receive more intelligence on the terrorist group’s links with ISIS, movements, training, its sources of arms and ammunition and strategies being evolved to overcome terrorism and insurgency in the country and its sub-region.
Buhari also pointed out that the sect’s actions were not religiously motivated, saying, “There is clearly no religious basis for the actions of the group. Their atrocities show that members of the group either do not know God at all or they don’t believe in Him.”
Responding to the newly inaugurated President, President Hollande assured that France would readily give Nigeria and its coalition partners greater support with military and intelligence cooperation to help them overcome the security challenge posed by Boko Haram and its global terrorist allies as quickly as possible.
He also suggested greater bilateral cooperation between Nigeria and France in other areas including trade, economic and cultural relations.
President Buhari also received similar pledges of enhanced support from Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada and Chancellor Angela Merkel who he also conferred with before departing from the venue of the G-7 2015 Summit.
