Ensuring and sustaining peace and security in any society have been discovered to be major and essential ingredients for development and progress.
No wonder President Muhammadu Buhari has devoted most part of his second week in office, just like his first week, to finding ways to eliminate the terrorists group, Boko Haram.
Besides increasing the momentum against the sect, President Buhari appears to be unstoppable in his stride to crush Boko Haram.
President Buhari, who left Nigeria on Sunday last week, made presentations to G-7 member nations, which include U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada in Germany last week Monday.
Top on his ‘wish list’, through which he was seeking the assistance of the G-7 member nations, was the problem of insecurity and the Boko Haram terrorists operating in the Northeastern part of Nigeria.
President Buhari, in Germany, was the toast of the world leaders as they expressed their willingness to come to the aid of his young administration.
Like a new kid on the block, President Buhari, who was warmly received at the summit, was given the privilege to first address the G-7 among the invited presidents and prime ministers.
Apart from the group’s acknowledgment of President Buhari’s emergence as President from an election adjudged freest in Nigeria’s electoral history, the G-7 leaders were sympathetic that the tremendous challenges facing Buhari’s government, including the Boko Haram, were not his making.
They said they were also not unaware of the massive amount of confidence and expectations behind Buhari’s government.
The group acknowledged that no one country can tackle the security threat of the Boko Haram since it had gone beyond Nigeria and now affecting other countries in the region.
In line with the group’s request for specifics, President Buhari and other leaders in the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) have started preparing the military requirements needed to defeat Boko Haram for onward transmission to the G-7.
President Buhari, who returned to Nigeria in the early hours of last Tuesday, also met with his security chiefs in Abuja on Wednesday over the insurgency.
To continue to press forward against Boko Haram, over six hours extra-ordinary summit of Heads of State and Government of LCBC member countries, including Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Republic of Benin was held on Thursday at the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
Among the resolutions from the summit was approving deployment of the national contingents to the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) by July 30, this year.
Welcoming member nations to the summit, President Buhari said: “Our meeting today is premised on the common resolve and commitment of member states of the LCBC and Benin to maintain the momentum in degrading the capacity of the insurgents until they are completely defeated.
“It is also borne out of the urgency to mitigate the suffering that has been imposed on our civilian population by the nefarious activities of the insurgents and terrorists.
“Our meeting today provides us an excellent opportunity to finalise the instruments for the operations of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), in order to give life to our joint military campaign to decisively defeat the insurgents.”
Buhari and spiritual cleansing episode
Delay in the relocation of President Muhammadu Buhari to the seat of power, Aso Rock, in the past two weeks has thrown up various speculations as reasons for it.
President Buhari’s administration, which was inaugurated on May 29, has operated from the Defence House, Abuja in the past two weeks.
President Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo were initially located to the Defence House when they were declared President-elect and Vice-President-elect.
Top of the rumours spreading like wildfire, had speculated that the delay by the leaders to move to the official residences and offices in the Presidential Villa was to allow for spiritual cleansing to take place first at the facilities.
The rumour also had it that President Buhari refused to move into the Presidential Villa because of advice from Senegalese spiritualists.
But the Presidency had debunked the rumour and attributed the delay to ongoing renovation works at Aso Rock.
On Thursday, the Presidency also released pictures of ongoing renovation works at the seat of power to journalist.
Describing the story on the marabouts as hogwash, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in a statement on Tuesday, expressed the Presidency’s “utter embarrassment at such suggestion,” as he declared that President Buhari is a practicing Muslim who believes his fate belongs to God.
He pointed out that no true believer combines faith in God and reliance on the power of ordinary mortal, who can neither protect themselves, nor protect others from the hands of fate.
Malam Shehu maintained that the so-called “spiritual cleansing of the Aso Rock Villa by Senegalese marabouts before President Buhari moves into the Villa” was the figment of the imagination of rumour mongers.
He also claimed that it was ridiculous to attribute President Buhari’s delay in moving into the Villa to any advice from fictitious marabouts.
According to him, renovation works in the Villa was largely responsible for the delay in President Buhari’s movement into the Presidential Villa.
Whatever the case may be, the staff and other groups working in the Presidential Villa are anxiously waiting for the leaders to relocate to the seat of power.
