Nigeria advocates for stronger engagement and development compact in Sahel and Lake Chad regions
Nigeria has called for enhanced political, economic, and security engagement with countries in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, proposing a development compact to address regional challenges. Ambassador Sola Enikanolaiye, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, made this call in Maiduguri, Borno State, during a high-level retreat for Nigerian ambassadors and diplomatic representatives from the Sahel and Lake Chad. The retreat, themed "Strengthening Nigeria鈥檚 Engagement with the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin Countries: Towards Peace, Security and Sustainable Regional Development," aims to develop practical strategies for shared challenges, recognizing that developments in neighboring countries directly impact Nigeria's national security, economy, and diplomacy. Enikanolaiye emphasized that economic cooperation, trade, peace, and stability in these regions are crucial to Nigeria's national interest, suggesting that stronger commercial ties, industrial value addition, agriculture, and food security could foster regional peace. He identified terrorism, transnational organized crime, irregular migration, climate change, environmental degradation, humanitarian crises, and geopolitical competition as major challenges requiring collective and coordinated responses. The minister specifically called for renewed political and diplomatic engagement with the Alliance of Sahelian States AES comprising Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. He also announced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' proposal f
