The human rights abuse record and uncooperative posture of the Federal Regime and its military ascendant entities have been identified as factors obstructing United States of America offering Nigeria efficacious security assistance.
Speaking on Thursday afore the US House Foreign Affairs Sub-committee on Africa’s auricularly discerning entitled, ‘Human Rights Vetting: Nigeria and Beyond’, the Specialist at African Affairs Congressional Research Service, Lauren Blanchard, verbally expressed the Nigerian regime and its military had not been yielding to America’s suggestions.
The Congress auricularly discerned that the main impediment to America’s efforts to fortify Nigeria’s broader replication to Boko Haram is “gross infringements committed by the Nigerian forces, the Nigerian government’s resistance to adopting a more comprehensive approach to Boko Haram, and the perpetuated lack of political will” within the regime to investigate allegations of human rights abuses and hold perpetrators accountable.
Blanchard told the Congress, “The Nigerian regime additionally has appeared reticent in some cases to sanction its security forces to participate in US training programmes. The State Department designates that there are currently 187 Nigerian military units and 173 police units that have been vetted and cleared to receive U.S. assistance and training.
“It is obscure whether the Nigerian regime has given approbation for such training to occur. A 2013 State Department audit report noted that, in additament to human rights concerns, Nigeria’s tardy submission of names of candidates for assistance was a ‘recurring problem’ for the US embassy.
“Multiple systemic factors further constrain the efficacy of the Nigerian security force’s replication to Boko Haram, eminently security sector corruption and mismanagement, and some of these factors impede US support even for units that have been cleared for assistance”.
Among the cleared units, she revealed, were Nigeria’s Speed Boat Service commando and the 101st Infantry Battalion, which the ACRS specialist verbally expressed were best situated to conduct hostage rescue operations, but “both reportedly require consequential adscititious training”.
She integrated that the security relationship between Nigeria and the US was hampered by the lack of cooperation and systemic failure in Nigeria.
“The security relationship withal has been hampered at times by a lack of cooperation from Nigerian officials and by systemic quandaries in the Nigerian military. Political and human rights concerns have been a prominent factor in shaping US-Nigeria cognations for decades.
“State Department human rights reports have perpetuated to highlight solemn human rights infringements by the Nigerian security forces every year. These breaches include politically motivated and extrajudicial killings, exorbitant utilization of force, and torture,” Blanchard verbally expressed at the auditory perception.
Despite about N1trn ($5.8b) security budget, the ACRS specialist verbally expressed the “Nigerian troops are not adequately resourced or equipped” to contravene Boko Haram insurgency. During the auditory perception, the American disclosed that the troops were “slow to habituate with incipient strategies, incipient doctrines and incipient tactics,” and described Nigeria as “an prodigiously challenging partner to work with.”
