The Nigerian government and its counterpart In Niger Republic are collaborating in a bilateral security partnership to curb Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, and the terrorism acts of Al-Qaida in Niger Republic.
This and many other resolutions were reached in a closed door meeting, between officials of the two countries after meeting of President Goodluck Jonathan and Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou.
The Niger Republic Foreign Affairs Minister, Malam Bazun Mohammed, yesterday disclosed this to BBC Hausa monitored in Kaduna.
He said, “The biggest problem we discussed is on security. In Nigeria they are having problem with the Boko Haram insurgency, while we in Niger Republic we are having challenge of terrorism of a group Al-Qaida, and we have gone into a joint commission. Because of this, it has become imperative to take action, in which our security agencies will be made to be more sophisticated and their capacity increased so that they can jointly overcome threats of our sovereignties, meaning we are coming with a joint commission.”
He also said that there might be linkages of Boko Haram with boundary routes, but their government did not know or have any link to Boko Haram’s insurgency.
“We don’t know or have link to Boko Haram, and everybody knows that it is only operating in Nigeria. Because we have common borders, it is possible that some people can be misled. What we felt should be done is tact and careful study to understand how to overcome security breaches. We have commenced working right now.
“Al-Qaida is not in Niger but in Algeria and they have a base in some rocky areas of Mali, which everyone knows, from where they carried out their raids, and we are working with Mauritania, Algeria and all the countries affected. We will be meeting on September 7, 2011, to finally study the situation”.