Nigeria’s National Security Adviser (NSA), Mohammed Monguno has said no territory of Nigeria would be used as a staging ground to destabilize Cameroon.
He said this on Monday in Abuja during the opening ceremony of the 6th Session of The Cameroon/Nigeria Trans-Border Security Committee.
Monguno said: “There should be no doubt whatsoever, of Nigeria’s support for the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cameroon.”
“We encourage the Cameroonian authorities to engage all aggrieved parties in a constructive manner to de-escalate tensions in Anglophone regions.”
Monguno also charged the Cameroon authorities to facilitate the return of Cameroonian refugees that have crossed the border into Nigerian territory due to heightened tension and apprehension.
The NSA noted that Nigeria as a signatory of most of the United Nation’s International protocols on the Rights of Refugees and their humane treatment would enforce these provisions.
He said the meeting is expected to examine trans-border security issues and build on successes recorded so far in the actualization of peace and security along the borders.
Monguno was apparently referring to the recent deportation of a key Cameroonian separatist leader, Julius Ayuk Tabe and 46 others, arrested in Abuja by Nigerian authorities in January.
Ayuk is the president of a self-declared breakaway state made up of the Anglophone regions of majority-Francophone Cameroon.
He was one of fifteen others who Cameroon issued an international arrest warrant for in November 2017.
His deportation marks an escalation in Cameroon’s fight against the separatists who have taken up arms over the past year in their bid to create a nation which they call Ambazonia.
The Ambazonian movement has gathered widespread support due to a government crackdown on peaceful protests by Anglophones who complain of being marginalised by the French majority.
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