President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday described as shameful for Nigeria whose military might helped end the wars in Burma, Zaire , Liberia, Sierra Leone and Sudan, now rely on its neighbours to end the insurgency in the North-easten part of the country.
This is even as the President said he was compiling the shopping list demanded by G7 world leaders who met in Germany recently.
“It is paradoxical what the Nigerian military has achieved from Burma to Zaire to Liberia to Sierria Leone to Sudan. But Nigeria is now to be helped by Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. How are the mighty fallen.?
“We will do our best to restore the respectability of our country and its institutions. And with you, your steadfastness and your seriousness, we will do what we can do, we will accommodate all your observations including the negative ones about the performance of the government and it’s agencies”.
He also described as not good enough and unfortunate that the Jonathan administration delayed in taking action to rescue the over 200 secondary schoolgirls abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State on April 14, last year.
He noted that security agencies and Federal Government’s initial conflicting report presented the country in a very bad light both nationally and internationally.
The President said this when he met with members of the #BringBackOurGirls’ group, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, led by Mrs Oby Ezekwesili and Maryam Uwais, yesterday.
The group alleged that the Jonathan administration never believed the students were abducted until weeks later when the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, started posting their pictures on the social media, before the administration was spurred into action.
While reiterating that his government was committed to mobilise and deal with the terrorism, Buhari assured the Chibok community which presented a five points demand which include rehabilitation of infrastructure and welfare for displaced persons, that it was their right and his government will do everything to meet them.
Buhari also told the group that he was still compiling the shopping list as demanded by the G7 world leaders who met in Germany last month.
He said, “At the G7, the leadership asked us for our shopping list which I’m still compiling, military has submitted theirs and I’m waiting for the governments of the frontline states to submit theirs local government by local government in terms of infrastructure, schools, health care, roads, markets, churhes, mosques and so on.”
