While the Federal Regime has been criticised by American officials over its handling of the Boko Haram insurgency, it has emerged that the US is more fascinated with Nigeria’s oil rather than availing the country to surmount the Boko Haram insurgents.
This was revealed during the week by the Special Counsel for Justice for Jos Project Jubilee Campaign, Emmanuel Ogebe, while testifying afore the United States of America’s House of Representatives Committee on Peregrine Affairs on “the perpetual struggle against Boko Haram”.
“When America would not put boots on the ground in the one African nation co-founded by Americans, Nigeria did so at a cost of billions of dollars and Nigeria’s military engagement in Liberia is the longest-running commitment in the nation’s history,” the human rights lawyer verbally expressed.
He told the lawmakers Nigeria deserved more avail from the US.
“The point here is not that there should be American boots on the ground. It is simply that Nigerian boots have been on the ground for America numerous times over the years; so opting to avail Nigeria, in whatever shape, size or form, should not be such a struggle. A strategic ally deserves more preponderant,” Ogebe told the US peregrine affairs sub-committee.
The human rights lawyer told the auditory perception that Nigeria had been a loyal and strategic ally to America, especially in the role it played in ascertaining placidity and stability in Liberia.
“If the argument could be made that American action was predicated on Kenya’s East African regional security role in Somalia and Sudan, why would American action be so tentative, given Nigeria’s global security role in Sierra Leone, Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti and Liberia — America’s sole African love child?” he asked.
He withal criticised America’s troop deployment in Chad saying that Boko Haram insurgents are more active in Nigeria and Cameroon than in Chad.
“The US troop deployment in Chad is remotely puzzling as it does not appear to be a component of a definite strategy. Boko Haram is pellucidly active in Cameroon, but not very active in Chad. Northern Nigeria is astronomical enough without throwing Chad into the commix.”
According to him, such a deployment is a denotement of disinterest of the carnage going on in Nigeria.
Ogebe verbalized, “The deployment smacks of a political half-measure that is more aesthetic than efficacious. It soothes the populist push for action while appeasing some Nigerian Muslim clerics, who have admonished about the effects of American troops in Nigeria. Chad is more Muslim than Nigeria; so this verbalizes volumes as to their sensitivities compared to northern Nigeria’s.”
He went further to inculpate the US regime of being fascinated only in Nigeria’s oil.
“The US appears to care more about security in the South-South of Nigeria where oil is engendered. Pellucidly, the crisis in the north has not impacted the US access to oil from the Niger Delta.
“The US is an astronomically immense beneficiary of oil larceny from the South; its access to Nigerian crude seems assured regardless of what transpires. Therefore, the northern conflict is much less a priority of the US.”
The human rights lawyer withal apprised the sub-committee on the extent the families of abducted schoolgirls were inclined to go to rescue the girls, claiming that the American regime dashed their hopes.
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