President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed his administration’s appreciation to the Commonwealth, Britain, the Group of Seven, (G-7) Industrialized Nations, France and the United States for the assistance being receive while blaming the spread of terrorism in Africa and other parts of the world on the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.
Buhari spoke of the need to establish a Commonwealth Committee to oversee the execution of greater assistance and support to Nigeria and other member-countries adversely affected by terrorism.
He demanded that the proposed committee, when established, should visit member-countries of the Commonwealth where terrorist organisations have footholds with a view to evolving practical strategies for more meaningful assistance to the affected countries.
Speaking on behalf of the Commonwealth leaders at a banquet hosted by the Head of Commonwealth and Queen Elizabeth II of England for Heads of States and Governments participating in the ongoing Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, (CHOGM) in Malta, Buhari hoped the committee would have been established before the next meeting of the organisation.
He noted that “with the improvement of global communications, terrorism has no borders now; what happened recently in France had a profound effect on all of us, but very few countries realise that Nigeria has suffered terrorist casualties of over 10,000 killed in the last six years.”
“Right now, we have over two million internally displaced persons, most of whom are women and children, and most of the children are orphans,” the President told the Queen and Commonwealth Heads of State and Government.
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