G7: France, Canada, Germany back Buhari on fight against Boko Haram

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday in Elmau at the G7 summit, Germany,  reaffirmed his administration’s total commitment to ending Boko Haram’s insurgency in the shortest time possible. This is containded in a news release issued by the Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity to the President, Malam Garba Shehu.

The release said Buhari made the pledge at a meeting with President Francois Hollande of France after his participation in Monday’s G-7 Outreach Programme. According to the release, Buhari said that Nigeria will welcome greater support and cooperation from France and other friendly nations for its ongoing efforts to overcome Boko Haram and restore normalcy to areas affected by the group’s atrocities.

The President said that his administration was already taking concrete action to build a more efficient and effective coalition of Nigeria and neighbouring countries against Boko Haram. Nigeria, he said, would appreciate more intelligence on the terrorist group’s links with ISIS, movements, training and its sources of arms and ammunition.

This, according to him, is to facilitate the perfection of fresh tactics and strategies being evolved to overcome terrorism and insurgency in the country and its sub-region. Buhari reiterated that there was absolutely no link between religion and the atrocities of Boko Haram.

“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,” Buhari said.

In his remarks, President Hollande commended President Buhari’s concerted efforts to galvanize Nigeria’s armed forces, security agencies and neighouring countries for more decisive action to eradicate Boko Haram. The French leader assured Buhari that France would give Nigeria and its coalition partners greater support against terrorism and insecurity, including military and intelligence cooperation.

He said the support was to help them to overcome the security challenge posed by Boko Haram and its global terrorist allies as quickly as possible. He also called for greater bilateral cooperation between Nigeria and France in other areas including trade, economic and cultural relations.

The release added that 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. The President is due back in Abuja early Tuesday.