The House of Representatives has called for greater synergy between Nigeria and the European Union (EU) member-states over the disturbing state of insecurity in Africa’s most populous nation.
House Speaker, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamala made the demand while speaking on the occasion of the celebration of this year’s Europe Day recently held in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
Chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rt. Hon. (Dr.) Yusuf Buba Yakub, who represented Gbajabiamala at the event said Nigeria-EU collaboration was necessary to tackle insecurity in Nigeria and mitigate the current threats roiling Nigeria across all regions, which include terrorism, banditry, kidnappings, incessant killings, rape and other acts of violence and criminality which have become widespread.
According to a statement by Hon. Buba, the House lauded the initiative of the European Union, which he said was established in 1950 to forge a common economic front that was to ensure the free movement of persons, goods and services among member States of the Union in the pursuit of peace and unity in Europe and the entire globe at the time.
Buba, while felicitating with the EU on the commemoration of the Europe Day and the bloc’s ten years of Diplomacy around the world, hailed the EU for “the interventions the Union has made on Health, Education, Gender Equality, Election, Governance and Security, stressing that such interventions had elicited love and support from beneficiaries in Nigeria and other parts of the world and that Africa needed to learn from the success story which the European Union represents to unite its member States and forge a common front for comprehensive development.”
On his own part, Head of Delegation of the European Union to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ambassador Ketil Karlsen, listed several efforts that the EU has made to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa.
Ambassador Karlsen said the bloc through its partnership with the Covid-19 COVAX programme played its role in the delivery of four million doses of Oxford Astra-Zeneca Covid-19 vaccine — the first brand of vaccine brought into Nigeria.
According to the EU envoy, Europe “in the past intervened in the Niger Delta youth restiveness/struggles and in such initiatives as the free provision of the COVID-19 COVAX vaccination for the campaign through which almost four million units of the Oxford Astra-Zeneca brand of the vaccines were first brought into Nigeria and administered to selected leaders and medical professionals working on the frontliné against the COVID 19 pandemic.”
