Egypt-Nigeria Joint Military Cooperation Committee on Monday visited the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Lucky Irabor, in Abuja, to strengthen existing military cooperation between the two countries.
The visit was part of international collaboration towards routing insurgency and terrorism.
Maj.-Gen Mohammed Salah, Egyptian Assistant Minister of Defence for International Relations, who led the delegation, said the officials were in Nigeria for the second meeting of the committee.
He said the military cooperation would cover many fields, including training, production and co-production of military hardware by both militaries.
Salah said the two armed forces were also working towards enhancing trans-boundary military collaboration to deal with threat such as insurgency and terrorism.
According to him, the two countries are going to work together on trans-boundary cooperation, because the threats are mostly trans-border.
“So our cooperation should also allow us follow suit; national security does not start and end at your borders, it extends way beyond your borders.
“So this cooperation is going to be beneficial in enhancing the national security of both countries,” he said.
The Director of Policy, Defence Headquarters, Maj.-Gen. Usman Yusuf, said the Nigerian military was going to draw lessons from Egyptian experience in fighting insurgency.
“Egypt is having a good experience fighting Islamic jihadists in the Sinai and other parts of its country and we have been having crisis in the North Eastern part of the country for some time now.
“On the part of Nigeria, we are looking forward to how to derive maximum benefit from Egypt’s experiences in fighting insurgency and other crimes.
“So, we are going to be sharing experiences and training on how to surmount our problems,” he said. (NAN)
