Buhari inherited serious challenges – G7 leaders

The leaders of the seven most industrialized countries of US, UK, Germany, Canada, France, Italy and Japan regretted that Buhari’s government had to face severe handicaps from the outset.
Speaking in Germany Monday after President Buhari had presented Nigeria’s wish list to them, they listed the handicaps as lack of resources, mismanagement as well as lack of trained and equipped military.
The G7 leaders, however, noted that those “serious problems” facing Nigeria were not President Buhari’s making.
According to a statement yesterday by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the G7 resolved to support Buhari following their acknowledgment “of the way and manner of his emergence and the tremendous challenges faced by the government he leads, not of his making, especially in its efforts to combat the Boko Haram.”
Shehu said: “At the end of the presentation he (Buhari) made on Monday, the G7 leaders said to him that they recognized the president’s massive amount of confidence and expectations behind his government. They acknowledged him as having emerged from an election adjudged to be the freest in the country’s electoral history, but regretted the severe handicaps his new government has to face from the outset.
“They told President Buhari that they took cognizance of the fact of the several handicaps including the lack of resources, leaving him with a government over-stretched in capacity, itself riddled with mismanagement. They noted that the country’s army lacked training and equipment with little or no will to engage.”
He said in recognition of the fact that the security threat of the Boko Haram had gone beyond Nigeria as it was affecting other countries in the region, the G7 leaders conceded that no one country could tackle it alone.
The presidential aide added that the G7 leaders commended Buhari for reaching out to them and Nigeria’s neighbours within a week of his inauguration.
He said: “In view of the seriousness he has shown in tacking this problem, the group pledged that they would engage, cooperate and collaborate with President Buhari’s government in tackling the serious problems that Nigeria faces.
“They left it to President Buhari to come up with the specifics on his requirements, assuring that they would study the requirements either individually or collectively and offer help. They asked to know the nature and the scale of the problems in order to know the nature and the scale of the assistance they will provide. Suffice it to say that they assured President Buhari that ‘Nigeria will find a partner in the G7.
“President Buhari, who had the privilege of being the first to address the G7 among the invited presidents and prime ministers, was warmly received at the summit. He returned to Nigeria in the early hours of Tuesday, 9 June.”