President Muhammadu Buhari says that a stable or unstable Libya has implications for countries in the Lake Chad Basin region, including Nigeria.
Mr. Femi Adesina, the president’s spokesperson in a statement, said Buhari said so when he welcomed Mohammed Younis Menfi, president of the Presidential Council of Libya, to the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Wednesday.
The president said: “The republics of Chad and Niger have extensive borders with Libya and are our immediate neighbors.
“Everything that affects them affects us. Libya’s stability or instability will directly affect us. “
He stressed that Nigeria’s security was the number one priority for him, noting that “unless a country or an institution is secure, there is no way to manage it effectively.”
Buhari said he was happy that the President of the Presidential Council of Libya could personally attend the Lake Chad Basin Commission summit which was held in Abuja on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Chad and the security implications in neighboring countries.
Al-Menfi said Libya is moving fast and “we now have one government, active on the ground.
“We expel the mercenaries and unite the instructions.”
He said democratic elections would be held in due course, adding that his country’s historic relationship with Nigeria in oil and agriculture meant that one country could not ignore the other.
“We aspire to joint cooperation and the reactivation of previous agreements,” Menfi said. (NOPE)
(NAN)