CPC: Boss Mustapha reveals how Buhari handled Trump in 2020

Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha, has challenged the Federal Government to move beyond rhetoric in its fight against terrorism.

Mustapha made the remark on Thursday while speaking to journalists in Abuja, shortly after the Nigerian Law School, NLS, Class of 1980 unveiled activities lined up for the commemoration of its 45th anniversary and reunion.

He maintained that the prevailing security situation requires a high level of diplomacy, coupled with the application of indigenous approaches to crime resolution.

The former SGF recalled the steps taken by the administration of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari to secure Nigeria’s removal from the United States’ list of Countries of Particular Concern, CPC, in 2021.

“With diplomatic backdoor shuttles, with empirical explanations and statistics, we will overcome these challenges. This is not the first time. We have been declared a Country of Particular Concern in 2020.

“It was the same Trump that put us there, but without the drama that this one followed. There was no tweet. It was just at the level of a policy decision, and I remember then that we engaged. We dispatched a team of technocrats to Washington.

“We applied soft diplomacy in terms of reaching out to friends within the global diplomatic community, and we leveraged the advantage of the stature of President Buhari then, to talk. A lot of things happen in the diplomatic climate, behind the doors. It is not for the media,” he said.