If
the statement by the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. James Entwistle,
is correct, then it would imply that the Federal Government is not only
adept at reneging on agreements locally, it is also an attitude it has carried
to its dealings with the outside world. Entwistle who spoke on a Channels
Television programme, was reacting to insinuations that the United States was not
willing to help Nigeria in curbing the activities of the Boko Haram sect. He
said contrary to this, his country was willing to assist Nigeria in the war
against terror, but it was the Federal Government that reneged on its part of
the deal.
According
to him, the U.S. was to provide world-class military personnel to train one
battalion of the Nigerian Army to international standards on how to handle
terror war while Nigeria was to provide the equipment. Unfortunately, while the
American government actually brought in the experts, Nigeria could not provide
the equipment, necessitating the cancellation of the deal because America could
not continue to retain the experts in Nigeria without the equipment to work
with.
“We
had started the training, at the request of the Nigerian government, of its
battalion up to a world-class standard. We brought in the best military
trainers in the world. But the agreement with the government was that we will
provide the trainers in order to do this properly, while the Nigerian Army will
provide the equipment needed to do the training”.
According
to Entwistle, “It is a partnership. We were doing this together. It is not
something we are doing for you. Training started, but sadly it got to a point
that we had to stop because the equipment was not available and after several
weeks of waiting, we could not keep the trainers here and the Nigerian
government decided to end the training.”
This
is a shocking revelation. Before this clarification, the impression out there
was that the United States was not keen on helping Nigeria so as to make a
prediction said to have emanated from the U.S. some years ago, to the effect
that Nigeria would disintegrate this year, come to pass. The envoy had at
another forum debunked the report, saying that even if there was any such
report on Nigeria, the American government had no hand in it.
The
circumstances leading to the termination of this deal do not portray the
country as serious. We did not provide equipment because of corruption and
indiscipline of the Jonathan government. Yet we want to blame another country
for our footloose ways. Who signed the deal on the part of Nigeria? It is
unacceptable that they were not aware of what it entailed. They knew that we
did not have modern equipment for the training and yet went ahead to append
their signatures to the pact.
Why
blame the Americans for the lack of progress made in the fight against Boko
Haram, simply because they failed to accede to our request to sell cobra
helicopters to us? Recently President Goodluck Jonathan blamed the past
military for not buying weapons in the 1980’s as if we need to hack back to
three decades ago for modern warfare. What weapons has he bought for the
21st century?
The
U.S. government has explained that it has procedure for selling such
sophisticated aircraft because of the abuses to which they could be put. And,
in fairness to it, there is no doubt that the Jonathan government lacks the
maturity and the political discipline to handle such.
It
is astonishing that we always expect people to bend their rules in order to
accommodate us. It is unfortunate too that in spite of the over three trillion
Naira committed to defence in our budgets in the past three years, we still
lack appropriate military equipment. That this is happening at a time the
country should have in stock the most sophisticated military equipment,
considering the havoc that Boko Haram has wreaked on the nation in the last
five years, makes the matter the more puzzling. We are tempted once again to
call for a proper audit of our defence budgets in recent years. It is pointless
accusing soldiers of mutiny when they lack the tools of war.
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