Improving security and tackling armed rebellions were the two key topics at this weekend’s Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) summit in Abuja.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari led the event and urged fellow leaders to forge a stronger partnership in addressing the region’s security challenges.
Security in the Lake Chad region and the wider Sahel was on top of the agenda at the day-long summit.
Buhari called for a minute of silence in honour of the victims of an armed attack at a military base in neighboring Niger earlier in December.
“It was with great shock and immense pain that I received the news of the tragedy last week in the Tilabari region of Niger Republic, where more than 33 valiant soldiers and other citizens of the country were brutally massacred in yet another cowardly terrorist attack by these enemies of peace and progress,” Buhari said in his address.
“As we mourn this enormous loss, our thoughts and sympathies go to the families of these heroes and the entire people of Niger Republic.”
Armed group Boko Haram’s campaign began in 2009 and has displaced more than 2.2 million people across Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon since, with no signs of slowing down despite counterattacks by a joint multinational force across borders
