President Goodluck Jonathan has insisted that leaders in African have no choice, as neighbours and brothers, but to work together, in unity and determination, to deal decisively with many threats that are dogging the security and stability of most of the countries today. Such threats, he said, has been impeding the continent’s development potential.
President Jonathan spoke today at the ground-breaking and re-launching ceremony of the construction of the Seme-Krake Joint Border Post. The project is one of seven such posts earmarked for construction in the coming years throughout the sub-region.
Seme-Krake is located on the Lagos-Abidjan transportation corridor, which forms a vital part of the Trans-African Highway network.
President Jonathan, in the company of his Benin Republic counterpart, President Boni Yayi listed the challenges and threats facing some countries today to include the new wave of terrorism and insurgent activities, trans-border crimes as human and drug trafficking, proliferation of small arms and light weapons, among others.
He said that the increased cooperation and coordination of controls, the exchange of data and intelligence which will result from the implementation of the Joint Border Posts would help the affected countries, individually and collectively, to successfully confront some of these challenges.
He expressed appreciation to President Yayi and the Government of Benin Republic for the what he called ‘invaluable partnership with Nigeria.’
“Today’s ceremony is another robust demonstration of our strong socio-cultural and economic cooperation that pre-dates the colonial era.
“Together, we built the Oyo and Borgou Empires, and today, we are still building modern socio-economic infrastructure, progressively and constructively, for the benefit and development of our people.”
President Jonathan also thanked the development partners such as the World Bank, USAID, AfDB, whose support and solidarity he said, have made the project possible.
“We commend also, the ECOWAS Commission which has also worked assiduously on this project.”
[myad]
