The French President, who was addressing a joint news conference, said that his government was concerned about the increasing spate of insecurity in Nigeria and the entire West Africa sub-region.
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Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to leave Abuja on Monday for Paris, France on an official visit.
“It is the same terrorism, inspired by the same ideology of death”, the French leader stated.
The President, in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, also reaffirmed his government’s determination to curb corruption in Nigeria. “But, if a coalition of countries in the region was formed to liberate Syria from Daech, these countries would have France’s support”, Valls told lawmakers.
He commended Buhari for initiating the relocation Nigeria’s highest military command to Maiduguri, the hotbed of the Boko Haram, saying it has so far produced tangible results.
Hollande also stressed the necessity to reach common alternatives so that “Europe can enforce its borders” amid the resistance of some eastern European states to accept European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s plan of compulsory quotas to redistribute about 160,000 refugees in the European Union (EU).
He described the electoral victory of President Buhari as a launching pad for Nigeria becoming the largest in democracy, demography and development, and called on the President to count on the support of French businessmen.
“We have to depend on France and the other G7 countries for support to fight piracy”.
On Nigeria’s problems, President Buhari lamented that more than 67 per cent of youths, majority under their youthful age, were unemployed.
“Sending tens of thousands of soldiers… would be the trap that the jihadists have set for us”, Valls said.
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According to him, trade expansion is to cover critical areas, such as agriculture, energy, automobile and skill development adding that “opportunities abound to greatly increase the $5billion annual trade volume between the two countries”.
