The Minister of Defence, retired Maj.-Gen. Bashir Magashi, says the country is opening up new areas of bilateral defence cooperation with Japan to get the country’s buy-in to mitigate the current insecurity facing the country.
Magashi stated this when the Japanese Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Nigeria, Mr Matsunaga Kazuyoshi, visited him on Thursday in Abuja.
The Special Assistant to the minister, Mr Mohammad Abdulkadri, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday.
He said that Nigeria would provide all necessary requirements to fastrack the emergence of a mutually beneficial Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that would be a force multiplier to end insecurity in Nigeria.
He said that both countries should tap into new diplomatic openings to rejig the existing cooperation especially in the areas of technological innovations and transfer.
The minister called on the envoy to initiate the template for the proposed MoU that would meet national aspirations to end insecurity in the country.
Earlier, the Japanese Envoy, Kazuyoshi said that Japan had developed a better approach for peace and stability in Africa, adding that Nigeria was the focal point of interest for the implementation plans.
Kazuyoshi said the proposed MoU would strengthen continuous security information exchange, training and more reconstruction assistance in the Northeast that would surpass the 14 million dollars last year. (NAN)
