The Senate President, David Mark, is in Beijing, China. Yesterday he said Nigeria has had enough of the insurgency and will spare no expense in ensuring it completely squashes it.
Mark, speaking to the Nigerian community in Beijing, said, “Boko Haram has become a real nuisance and the menace is unacceptable. They have declared war on Nigeria and we will fight them with all the resources at our disposal. We will not allow it to go on for too long; government is very serious about it.
“It is an avoidable distraction and it is something we do not need at this point in our history when we are trying everything possible to bring development to Nigeria to attract foreign investors. So, the message should go out loud and clear to anyone who is either a sponsor or a member of Boko Haram that we will fight them with all resources at our disposal.’’ Continue after the cut...
The Nigerian Charge d’affaires in Beijing, Mr. Suleiman Tanko, told the Senate President of the challenges the Nigerian community in China has in conducting their business.
“We have 12,000 Nigerians in China; out of this number, 10,000 live in Guangzhou, and are largely in trading because it is a little bit difficult to penetrate the real business system here.’’ If any Nigerian tells you that he has a business here, then it means that he is married to a Chinese lady; otherwise it is only merely petty trading that Nigerians are engaged in here,’’ Tanko said.
He also said that there was a high number of Nigerians in jail who had overstayed their visas.
“We have about 463 Nigerians in various jails. Ninety per cent of the crimes they committed are drug-related, and 90 per cent of them are from only one state in Nigeria,’’ Tanko said.
“It is really embarrassing that most of those arrested came straight from Nigeria; and this is posing a huge embarrassment to Nigerians in China,’’ he said.
We can’t seem to get past the ‘for too long’ sentence though.
