Nigerian president vows to end security challenges

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday reassured the West African nation of his administration's preparedness to end the menace of Boko Haram. The Nigerian leader told a church gathering in the capital Abuja that his administration was working assiduously to address the security challenges in the country. He told his audience that adequate measures had been put in place to contain the menace of the Boko Haram militant group. While assuring the congregation that the activities of Boko Haram will not push the nation backward, the president said the security plans put in place were already yielding positive results. According to him, the strategic security arrangement helped abort the plans by the group to attack on Christmas Day. "The Boko Haram planned to carry out a lot of attacks on Christmas Day, but we suppressed their plans during the Christmas, because the extent of their plans was not executed because of the strategies put in place by the security agencies to abort their plans," he added. "We still recorded some incidences, but the extent of attacks which they planned was not allowed to be executed," the president said. Waves of attacks believed to be perpetrated by the Boko Haram sect have been reported in the northern and central parts of Nigeria, killing thousands of people since its emergence in 2009