Nigeria’s Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has been commended by the United Nation’s Office for West Africa and Sahel (UNOWAS) over his handling of the recent crisis in the Bakassi Peninsula in which many Nigerians were reportedly killed and others displaced.

A special representative of the UN Secretary-General for West Africa and Head of UNOWAS, Mohamed Ibn Chambas made the commendation while speaking in New York.

“Let me commend the initiative of the Acting President of Nigeria, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, who has already directed that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) should find out what numbers have come across the border to Nigeria. He also asked the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) at the Cross River level to look into what numbers have been displaced as a result of this,” Ibn Chambas said.

“So I think adequate response has been undertaken by the Nigerian side to cater for any Nigerians who might have come back into the country from Bakassi. We commend that effort on the part of the Nigerian authorities.”

Ibn Chambas however expressed sadness over the incident which saw the killing of 97 Nigerian fishermen by Cameroonian gendarmes over their failure to pay a N100,000 boat levy.

He urged both countries to maintain the solidarity and co-operation that exists between them and scale up the joint fight against Boko Haram insurgents.