France has said expressed worry over the killings in the North-East region of Nigeria by members of the terrorist group, Islamic State in West Africa Province.
According to Punch, the Ambassador of France in Nigeria, Jerome Pasquier said the group was a common enemy of France and Nigeria.
He spoke on Wednesday on the sidelines of the International Women Business Leaders cocktail hosted by the Franco-Nigeria Chamber of Commerce and Avandis Consulting.
Pasquier said, “We are very much worried by the problem of insecurity, especially the terrorism in the North-East. The Islamic State is a common enemy; the group has killed hundreds of persons in France and many more in Nigeria. We want to work with Nigerian government on this.
“Nigeria is a sovereign state and we will do whatever we are requested to do at the demand of the Nigerian authority. What we will do will be clearly spelt out in the fight against terrorism.”
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Asked if Nigeria had made any request to France for assistance in this regard, the ambassador said the two nations were discussing.
“We are comparing ways of dealing with this issue. Nigeria has a strong military and I don’t think they need military support. We are always ready to answer any question from the military on how to deal with this issue.”
The ambassador also asked Nigeria to consider giving women more opportunities to occupy leadership positions, saying they would help the nation to develop more.
He said, “Nigeria has many talented women and two days ago, I was in Abuja with Amina Mohammed, who is now with the United Nations. I think it will be very good for the country to trust women more to even give them more opportunities.”
The Consul General of France to Nigeria, Madame Laurence Monmayrant, said gender equality would ensure economic growth and stability in the country and canvassed more leadership roles for women.
A partner at AELEX Legal Practitioners and Arbitrators, Funke Adekoya SAN, said the economic downturn in the nation was good because the economic problem had forced the male folks to shift focus to women for solution to the problem.
Adekoya observed that despite the fact that women were 50 per cent of Nigeria’s population, their contributions to the development of the nation was not being given due recognition.
