President Emmanuel Macron of France says his country can not help Nigeria and Africa solve the problem of insecurity but would intervene, especially, in the fight against terrorism.
Speaking after bilateral talks with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Tuesday, Macron said the bigger responsibilty is that of African countries who should come together and find a way to fighting terrorism.
“First of all I think the main plan is an African plan and France is not the one to solve or fix African situations,” he said.
“So what we want to do is that we will intervene and maintain our presence in Africa and Sahel to fight against terrorism especially in Mali and in the region. And we will stay as long as it is requested by our friends, especially Mali, we discussed yesterday (Monday) about this issue.
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“But what is important to me is how different African governments organize themselves to fight against terrorism and get rid of these people and especially Jihadists. That’s why I do accompany and do promote the G5/Sahel Initiatives and I think as far as we are concerned, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon are very important to the fight against Boko Haram.”
Macron said the pressure in fighting terrorism has to be increased.
“Yesterday at G5/Sahel, we worked very hard on the different operations to come and I think we have to increase the operations and the pressure against these Jihadists,” he said.
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“We can fix the situation in the coming month and obviously France will remain present in France for as long as they want it. But when I look at the past months, we have increased our resource and delivered concrete results in north and west Mali with for me positive outcomes.”
Marcon and Buhari signed agreements for France to assist Nigeria with $475 million for projects in Lagos, Kano and Ogun states.
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