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President Muhammadu Buhari says there has been "a lot of improvement"
against Boko Haram, whose seven-year insurgency has killed at least 20,000
people and displaced more than 2.6 million others
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President Muhammadu
Buhari on Wednesday pleaded with militants to "give Nigeria a
chance", vowing to keep the country intact despite widespread ethnic and
religious divisions that threaten unity.
AFP
report continues:
Nigeria
is facing security threats on multiple fronts: Boko Haram Islamists in the
northeast, Biafran separatists in the southeast, oil rebels in the south and
nomadic herdsmen in the central states.
There
have long been tensions between the Muslim majority north and largely Christian
south, which were joined as one entity by former colonial ruler Britain in 1914
for political and economic expediency.
Buhari
said there had been "a lot of improvement" against Boko Haram, whose
seven-year insurgency has killed at least 20,000 people and displaced more than
2.6 million others.
Work
was now ongoing to tackle the new threat to OPEC-member Nigeria's oil production
from rebel groups in the southern delta region, he told senior ministers at a
meeting to mark the end of Ramadan.
"We
are now concentrating on the militants to know how many of them (there are) in
terms of groupings, leadership and plead with them to try to give Nigeria a
chance," he said.
Most
of the attacks on oil installations since February have been claimed by the
Niger Delta Avengers, which wants international oil companies out of the region
and fairer revenue sharing of profits.
Several
other groups have emerged with similar aims but the NDA has also said it wants
self-determination for the delta, allying itself with Igbo people in the
southeast, who want an independent Biafran republic.
Buhari,
a former army general who led a military government in the 1980s, referred to
his time under General Yakubu Gowon, who was in charge during the Nigerian
civil war from 1967-70.
That
conflict was sparked by a previous unilateral declaration of independence by
the Igbo of the southeast.
"I
assure them (the militants) that when we were very junior officers, we were
told by our leaders, by the head of state which was General Gowon, that to keep
Nigeria one is a task that must be done," he added.
"We
never thought of oil," he said, responding to militant claims that the
redistribution of oil revenue across the federation was unfair.
"What we were after is one Nigeria. Please, pass the message to the militants that one Nigeria is not negotiable. And I pray they better accept it."
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