The NEWS (Monrovia)
3 July 2008
Monrovia — The outgoing Force Commander of the United Nations MIssion in Liberia (UNMIL), Lt./Gen. Chikadibia Isaac Obiakor has been appointed Military Adviser for Peacekeeping Operations at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
An UNMIL release issued yesterday said Gen. Obiakor called on Liberians to be patient and make sacrifices to rebuild their country, as it will take time to deliver to their expectations.
Speaking to the media after a farewell visit to UNMIL troops in Central Liberia, General Obiakor, who is leaving the mission after more than 30 months of duty, to take up a new assignment at the UN in New York, observed that Liberia had come a long way since the inception of UNMIL in October 2003.
The Force Commander urged Liberians to work hard and take charge of their own destiny. "Liberians must take ownership of the rebuilding of their country. They must forge ahead and work for themselves."
General Obiakor, who has traveled the length and breadth of Liberia during his peacekeeping duties, said he was always amazed at the impressive manner in which people in the rural areas had embraced the peace.
"You will be driving in the remotest part of Liberia and you will see people walking alone without fear; they have confidence in the peace, and they really cherish it, he said."
The outgoing Force Commander said the jammed streets of Monrovia and the vibrant commercial and academic activities emerging across Liberia are symbols of the rebirth of peace in Liberia.
"I remember quite vividly how many times I received delegations from refugee camps all over West Africa to find out from me whether it was safe to come back home, and I gave them the assurance, and most of them have returned home," Obiakor noted.
General Obiakor said securing Liberia's borders with neighbors in the sub-region was one of his toughest challenges as UNMIL Force Commander.
"Securing the borders was crucial, considering the antecedents of how conflicts in the sub-region had always started and reached everybody," he said. "We solved the problem by introducing concurrent border patrols with the armed forces of Guinea and Sierra Leone and our sister UN force in Cote d'Ivoire," he added, and commended his counterparts in the three neighboring countries for their cooperation.
The outgoing Force Commander who was received in Gbarnga, Bong County, by Sector Commander Brig.-Gen. Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar, addressed the Bangladeshi troops, and later inaugurated the "Bangla Ghor," a summer hut erected by the medical unit of the Bangladeshi Contingent as a symbol of their peacekeeping commitment.
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