President Muhammadu Buhari Friday held a bilateral meeting with His Excellency Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of The Netherlands, at the sidelines of the 76th UN General Assembly in New York, USA, assuring that Nigeria was dealing with terrorist elements troubling the country.
“We are preoccupied with security, and we are getting somewhere,” the President assured, adding that the North-East and the South-South, which were the issues in 2015, are stabilizing, while efforts are on to restore calm to the North-West, North-Central, and other restive areas.
On the economy, the President said the country took decisions to shut the borders, “eat what we grow, and curb smuggling,” noting that if that had not been done, “we would have been in serious trouble. We are lucky to have taken the decision when we did, otherwise things would have been impossible with the advent of COVID-19.”
On the spectre of military coups in West Africa, President Buhari told his guest that he was surprised at the attitude of those tampering with the Constitution of their countries, to stay longer in office. He assured that ECOWAS was doing the needful to address the developments.
Prime Minister Rutte congratulated President Buhari on how he successfully leads a country of over 200 million people, wishing Nigeria greater advances.