Buhari hosts French President, hollande and others at Second security summit
Recently, the French President, Francois Hollande and his French delegates were welcomed as the guests of President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa for the Second Regional Security Summit which took place in Abuja. President Hollande had hosted the First Regional Security Summit in Paris in May 2014. Other guests included the Presidents of Cameroon, Niger Republic, Chad and Benin Republic and there were also representatives of the United States, Britain, Equatorial Guinea, the European Union, ECOWAS, the Economic Community of Central African States and the Gulf of Guinea Commission.
The main agenda of the summit was to find speedy resolutions of the humanitarian crises caused by the barbaric atrocities of the terrorist Boko Haram group. The world leaders dwelt on the promise of the future and what could be done to steer the economy and humanitarian situation into better times. They concluded that defeating the Boko Haram terrorist group required a strong and determined approach with clear and well-orchestrated plans of engagement at the regional level.
Among other things, they recommended the enlistment of local community and religious leaders, increased intelligence sharing; responsibility for the public education system and unrelenting determination in their pursuit of discovering and rescuing the Chibok schoolgirls. The leaders also pledged to lend their support the victims of sexual violence or forced marriage by the Boko Haram sect by providing the victims with appropriate support including reintegration to their communities. This will help them cope better with the inevitable challenges they would face when trying to adjust to the system they were ruthlessly snatched out of, not to mention also learning to how to overcome their emotional, mental and physical turmoil. A healing process the nation has to be well equipped to handle properly.
It was also decided and agreed upon that the root causes of insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin insurgency requires a government-led development action to tackle by producing educational development and economic opportunities.