In an effort to tackle security concerns, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, has said Nigeria is working with foreign partners to achieve greater synergy through constructive rather than alarmist dialogue.
This comes on the heels of several foreign missions issuing alerts to their citizens, including warning of possible terror attacks in Abuja, providing emergency services for their citizens in Nigeria, and approving the evacuation of embassy staff.
Speaking at a news conference in Abuja on Monday, Onyeama, in conjunction with the National Security Adviser, Retired Major-General Babagana Monguno, and the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, noted that there were ongoing efforts to neutralise security threats.
“There is a foreign dimension to this (security) issue as alerts were obviously issued by foreign countries with missions here in Nigeria,” he said.
“Now, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the Nigerian Intelligence Agency have been working very closely to fully get on top of the situation but also to engage with our foreign partners, first of all, to mitigate and blunt any threat that there could be from outside the country, but also working and engaging with the foreign missions within the country to ensure that whatever we do or say is constructive and should not, in any way, cause unnecessary alarm and destabilize the country.”
According to the minister, the Federal Government is in full engagement with foreign partners with Nigerian security personnel and agencies fully on top of the situation.
“As they (security chiefs) have said, there is really no cause for alarm. We want to push more for greater coordination and synergy with our foreign partners and make sure that cooperation with them is a constructive one and not an alarmist one,” Onyeama stated.
