Address by Muhammadu BUHARI, President of Nigeria, during the&nbsp;formal sitting of the EP in Strasbourg.

Strasbourg

EU - Nigeria (T)

SCHULZ, Martin (S&D, DE)

BUHARI, Muhammadu (NG)

Address by Muhammadu BUHARI, President of Nigeria: extracts from the formal sitting

EP President Martin SCHULZ and Muhammadu BUHARI are entering the Chamber, applause, Strasbourg, France (6 shots)

SOUNDBITE (English), Muhammadu BUHARI, President of Nigeria, Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, Ladies and Gentlemen, democracy has come to Nigeria to stay, sooner than many of us would have imagined, Nigeria will be counted among the most stable, strong and viral democracies in Africa. There are maybe strives and stresses, but these can be contained by the safety mechanism of an electoral democracy.

SOUNDBITE (English), Muhammadu BUHARI, President of Nigeria, Our problems are poverty, disease and technological backwardness. It is not too difficult to appreciate the kind of challenge these kinds of problems pose, internal strife, refugees, boat people, drug and human trafficking, etc. Chaos is not anyway what anybody would wish to have, which is therefore in our collective interest to cooperate and tackle these serious problems in Africa.

SOUNDBITE (English), Muhammadu BUHARI, President of Nigeria, In the context of these EU-Nigeria relations, I wish to acknowledge that the European Union had severely condemned activities of terrorist groups, including the Boko Haram in Nigeria and the entire community of West African states. The EU had noted and recommended Nigeria's development of a National counter terrorism strategy, the amendment of the national counter terrorism act in the demonstration of government's commitment to find allies and solutions to the threats by Boko Haram terror elements. Nigeria appreciates the EU cooperation especially in the area of technical support, capacity building for security services and provision of development assistance.

SOUNDBITE (English), Muhammadu BUHARI, President of Nigeria, It may interest you to know that in a recent meeting I had with the parents of the Chibok girls, I assured them that government will not give up until all the girls are rescued alive and reunited with their families, I'm really committed to this pledge.

SOUNDBITE (English), Muhammadu BUHARI, President of Nigeria, Peace keeping and peace building have been part of Nigeria's foreign policy since its independence. Nigeria's troops have participated in all almost United National Sub regional and regional peace keeping and peace building operations, in spite of our current security challenges Nigeria is among the 10 top contributing countries in the UN Peace keeping operations around the world with huge financial and human commitments.