President Goodluck Jonathan

Muhammad Bello in  Abuja

President Goodluck Jonathan has urged the global community to respond more robustly to the scourge of terrorism.

This came as the president will friday  leave Abuja for Cote’d Ivoire at attend the extraordinary meeting of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) Authority of Heads of State and Government.

The president after reviewing recent terrorism-related events in Algeria and Northern Mali with the new British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Andrew John Pocock, noted that the whole world clearly needed to unite and do much more than is presently being done to contain terrorism with its very negative impact on global peace and security.

Jonathan condemned thursday kidnapping of British, French and other foreign workers at a gas facility in Eastern Algeria by terrorists who claimed to be responding to France’s intervention in Mali, saying that Nigeria will continue to work hard with its partners in the international community to ensure that terrorism is vigorously rolled back across the world.
The President told Mr. Pocock that in furtherance of Nigeria’s commitment to the war against terrorism in West Africa, Nigerian troops were currently deploying to Mali to join up with the multinational force assembling there to restore Northern Mali to the control of the Malian Government.

Meanwhile Cote’d Ivoire meeting is ahead of the full deployment of troops to Mali.
Jonathan will be accompanied by the Minister of State for Defence, Mrs. Olusola Obada, and the Chief of Defence Staff, Ibrahim.
President Jonathan is due back in Abuja on Saturday.