By Rafiu Ajakaye
LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) – Boko Haram “remains a threat” despite massive counterinsurgency breakthroughs recorded in Nigeria’s northeast, French President Francois Hollande said on Saturday.
Hollande was in the country’s capital, Abuja, where a second regional summit on the terror group’s activities is underway.
Speaking at a joint news briefing with Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, Hollande said: “The result of the counterinsurgency has been impressive and the militants have been diminished and forced to retreat,” referring to Western-backed efforts to curtail the group across the Lake Chad region.
However, he added that the group “nevertheless remains a threat”, urging partners to remain committed to the fight against terrorism and to address humanitarian issues around the seven-year crisis.
Buhari restated his country’s commitment to fighting terrorism and called for increased unity and intelligence-sharing by all nations. “Terrorism respects no border,” he added.
The regional security summit is being attended by presidents of Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Benin, the Central African Republic, Gabon and Togo, among others. Diplomats from the United Nations, African Union, European Union, the U.S., the U.K. and China, among others, are also present.
The first regional summit on Boko Haram was held in Paris on May 17, 2014 as the international community woke up to the threat posed by the group in the wake of its mass abduction of schoolchildren in Nigeria’s Chibok town on April 14 that year.
