President John Dramani Mahama has charged West African leaders to join forces to fight terrorism in the sub-region.<\/p>\n
Eight West African Heads of state converged on the Ghanaian capital, Accra to discuss important issues affecting the sub-region including the Boko Haram threat in Nigeria and the security situation in Mali.<\/p>\n
The eight leaders who made it to the emergency\u00a0Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) summit included the Presidents of, Nigeria [Goodluck Jonathan], Mali [Ibrahim Boubacar Ke\u00efta], C\u00f4te d’Ivoire [Alassane Ouattara], Senegal [Macky Sall], Sierra Leone [Ernest Bai Koroma], Niger [Mahamadou Issoufou], Togo [Faure Gnassingb\u00e9] and Burkina Faso [Blaise Compaor\u00e9].<\/p>\n
President Mahama who doubles as the chairman of ECOWAS in his opening address called on the sub-regional leaders to see the situation in both Mali and Nigeria as a threat to the region’s economic progress and act swiftly to end it.<\/p>\n
\u201cTerrorism is not solely a West African problem. It is a world problem. \u00a0It is in fact becoming an undeniable problem of the world in which we live today. \u00a0To ignore our responsibility towards the eradication of terrorism is to risk the economical and developmental potential of our individual nation and indeed of our sub regions. Far more important of that is to risk the lives of our citizens. Far more important of that is to risk the lives of our citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Mahama took the opportunity to welcome efforts by the international community to aid the sub-region deal with the emergence of terrorism.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther foreign nations have offered support in different forms and we in ECOWAS welcome those supports,\u201d \u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
According to him, \u201cin order to successfully fight against this cult of terrorism we must avail ourselves to all assistance that is offered we must also share information and resources,\u00a0 we must as members of the community offer one another protection that comes with solidarity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the Nigerian President, Dr. Ruben Abati \u00a0in an exclusive interview with Citi News<\/strong> spoke about some measures being adopted by the Federal government of Nigeria to rescue the abducted 200 girls;<\/p>\n \u201cOur security forces are working in collaboration with our international allies who are providing assistance in terms of logistics, surveillance, satellite imaging. They are careful, while searching for the girls they are trying not to do anything that will jeopardize the lives of those girls, because the terrorists have guns fixed to the heads of those girls.\u201d<\/p>\n He also reiterated Nigeria\u2019s commitment to fighting terrorism and hinted that\u00a0Al-qaeda\u00a0was supporting Boko Haram’s fight in the oil rich nation.<\/p>\n “President Jonathan is committed to make sure the girls are brought back home and safely to parents of the girls.\u00a0 The government is committed to chase away these thugs and their Al-qaeda\u00a0allies who are threatening the democracy and freedom in Nigeria.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By: Benjamin Epton Owusu\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President John Dramani Mahama has charged West African leaders to join forces to fight terrorism in the sub-region. Eight West African Heads of state converged on the Ghanaian capital, Accra to discuss important issues affecting the sub-region including the Boko Haram threat in Nigeria and the security situation in Mali. The eight leaders who made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":17148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[317,1132,1131,1133,360,814,38,125],"yoast_head":"\n