By; Sunday Ode, Abuja.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday sought the support of German government in Nigeria’s quest to be appointed to the permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council.
Buhari insisted that the country was qualified for the seat by every consideration and standard.
“In the United Nations, Nigeria an African country feels that we are qualified by our number, by our size, by our position in Africa, to have a seat in the United Nations. We hope that Germany will support us,” he stated.
Buhari who spoke at a joint press conference with the visiting President of Germany, Joachim Gauck at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja also declared that no part of the country was under the control of the Boko Haram insurgents.
A Senator representing Borno Central Senatorial
District, Garbai Baba Kaka, had alleged recently that half of Borno State was still under the control of the insurgents.
But Buhari told the visiting President that the insurgents had been drastically degraded by the federal forces and rendered incapable of seizing any part of the country.
He said: “It is a pity Boko Haram welcomed you by explosions in Maidugiri that took so many lives, but I have attempted to explain in so many fora that Boko haram is not what it used to be. While they were firmly holding 14 out of 774 local governments when we came in, they are not holding any local government now.
“What they have resorted to is using improvised explosive devices to cause maximum casualties on soft targets as they did yesterday (Wednesday), doing what they are capable of doing now.
“But for them to organize conventional attacks on military or police installations and take hold of towns , I think they are not able to do that. They send groups to go and kill vulnerable targets.
“Having said that, our efforts have to be redoubled to make sure that the people in internally displaced camps (IDPs) have been rehabilitated especially the children. More than 60% of the two million people in IDPs are women and children and more than 60% of them are children and more than 60% of the children are orphaned.
“Some of them don’t know where they are from, they don’t know their parents, this is a pathetic situation the leadership of this government is facing because the least we should do is to quickly resettle those children, if possible try and identify their neighborhoods, repair the schools, health centers and maybe part of the villages so that they can get out of the trauma that they are in.”
President Buhari, accordingly expressed appreciation to the G7, especially Germany and the United States for their support that had helped to subdue the insurgents.
He also stated that they had stood for the country in its other hours of need such as the Ebola virus outbreak and polio scourge in the country by supporting efforts that led to their elimination, as well as making the 2015 general election a success.
Buhari disclosed that what was uppermost in his mind was how to resettle the over two million victims of the insurgency that were spread across the various IDP camps in the country.
Mr. Gauck in his remarks said Germany would mobilise other members of the European Union to raise some 50 million dollars to support the operations of the Multi National Joint Task Force established by the Lake Chad Basin countries to fight Boko Haram.
