French President, Emmanuel Macron has said his country cannot help Nigeria in particular and Africa in general solve its insecurity problems, insisting the solution is for African governments to organize themselves and get rid of those he called “Jihadists”.
Macron said Africa needs African solutions to eradicate extremists in the continent, said Macron during a joint press conference with Presidents Muhammadu Buhari.
“First of all I think the main plan is an African plan and France is not the one to solve or fix African situations. So what we want to do is that we will intervene and maintain our presence in Africa and Sahel to fight against terrorism especially in Mali and in the region. And we will stay as long as it is requested by our friends especially Mali we discussed yesterday (Monday) about this issue.
“But what is important to me is how the difference African governments organized themselves to fight against terrorism and get rid of these people and especially jihadism. That’s is why I do accompany and do promote the G5/Sahel Initiatives and I think as far as we are organized, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon is very important it’s Boko Haram.
He pledged to increase the cooperation between Nigeria and France in tackling security challenges occasioned by Boko Haram and ISIS jihadists in Nigeria and the Sahel region of Africa.
When asked how France plans to curb terrorism in Africa and more specifically curb herdsmen and farmers crisis in Nigeria, Macron said, “Well is just that you have all these several issues correlated and your question is related to this event.
“I think first we have to increase the pressure. Yesterday at G5/Sahel we worked very hard on the different operations to come and I think we have to increase the operations and the pressure against this Jihadists. We can fix the situation in the coming month and obviously France will remain present in France for as long as they want it. But when I look at the past months, we have increased our resource and delivered concrete results in north and west Mali with for me positive outcomes.
“Now, what we have to do to better understand is, why many people are convinced to join these jihadists and these terrorists, that is what we discussed and this is the second part of your question, because of some times economic and ethnic crisis. And that is why it is very important to build not just the security approach but the stabilization approach at the same time, to provide new opportunities to these people and convoy two massages: your governments will take care of you, I mean provide security and secondly your governments can provide opportunities to you. And the best support is not to join crazy people and buy a bunch of guns and do crazy things. It is not opportunity to have any more opportunities, I think is very important.
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