Nigeria and The Gambia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on military cooperation at the Ministry of Defence, Abuja.
A statement issued Friday in Abuja by the special assistant to the minister of defence on media and publicity, Mohammad Abdulkadri, indicated that the MoU “will boost intelligence-sharing, capacity-building, tactical and technical synergies between the two countries.”
It added that the signatories to the MoU, the Minister of Defence, Maj.-Gen. Bashir Salihi Magashi (retd.) and the Gambian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mohamadou Musa Njie, agreed that the MoU could not have come at a better time “than now that common threats of insecurities to both countries need to be jointly tackled.”
The statement read in part, “After the ceremonial signing of the legal document and the symbolic exchange of the instrument of stronger fraternity in the spheres of the Military, the representatives of the two countries pledged in their separate speeches to operationalise the terms and conditions of the MoU.
“Specific instances and references were made to the expectations from the newly formalised diplomatic ties between the two countries. They include, boosting of the hitherto existing joint Military manoeuverability, operability as well as tactical and technical synergy.
“Other areas enshrined in the MoU include enhanced networking in Intelligence sharing, capacity building and the need to emplace robust counter trans- national strategy to decisively clear the effrontery and the audacity of the adversaries threatening the corporate existence of the two coastal nations who share common Membership of African Union, ECOWAS and geographical similarities within the West African Sub-region.”
