“Nigeria did not honour its agreement with us”: The US ambassador to Nigeria is still disappointed
The United States ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, shed more light on the Nigerian government's recent cancellation of the military training for Nigerian soldiers which was being carried out by the US military.
At the time the training was cancelled by the Nigerian government, the US embassy released a short statement saying that the training was being done to help the Nigerian military build capacity to battle the insurgents. The embassy was surprised that the training was cancelled without reason.
READ: Did US Military Trainers Truly Incite Nigerian Soldiers To Rebel Against Authorities?
On Thursday, Entwistle met with some journalists at his residence and told them that Nigeria failed to honour its own part of the agreement with the United States despite being the ones who made the request.
He said: “We had, at Nigeria's request, agreed to train some battalion, in my opinion, some of the best trainers in the world have been provided by the United States. The agreement was that we would provide the trainers and the Nigerian Army would provide the equipment we need to properly conduct the training and that was agreed well ahead of time as part of our partnership.
“This was not something we were going to do for Nigeria; it was something we were going to do together as partners. We were able to do a bit of this and it got to a point where we were waiting for these equipment to be provided for us to finish the training, but the decision by the Nigerian government, as I understand it, was 'no that is enough; we don't want to finish this training'. Frankly, that was a disappointment to us given that we had provided that symbol of our commitment. As to what motivated your government, I don't know. I will encourage you to put that question to them.”
The ambassador spoke to journalists about the recently decommissioned warship NNS Okpabana which the US donated to Nigeria. He said that if the US was not supportive of Nigeria's security efforts, it would never have made the donation.
“In terms of what is happening in the North-east and military relationship, we have all seen in recent months a lot of stuff about the US imposing an arms embargo. I am here to tell you as President Obama's personal representative to this country that that is nonsense; that is not true.
“We have given this ship, NNS Okpabana as part of our commitment to strengthen security in Nigeria. We have a number of discussions on the way right now. A good portion of the assistance we give every day on the war against terror are things I can't talk about that much, but I can assure you that no partner is doing more to assist Nigeria in its fight against terror now than the United States of America. We have seen the most unfortunate incident in Baga and that underlines to me the importance of continuing this fight.
“We are still talking about a number of equipment, different kinds of helicopters that can be more appropriate to that kind of thing. But, what are our human rights considerations? When I got here about two years ago, there were discussions about the conduct of the Nigerian Army in the North-east about the treatment of the civilian population. It was reported in your media. This is not something we came up with.
“Nigerians themselves were focusing on it. So, we have had a lot of discussions with the Nigerian Army about the need to, as you fight terror, you also have to protect the civilian population and keep them on your side.
“We have learnt the hard way in our own counterterrorism that if you lose the trust and support of the civilian population, you've lost everything. So, we have had that conversation. Indeed, much of the trainings that we've done with your army in the U.S. have focused on that kind of thing, effective leadership and how do you operate against an enemy that is hard to identify? That mixes into the civilian population, how do you fight that kind of enemy while at the same time respecting the civilian population? I am not a military man but it strikes me that this is a very difficult thing to do.”
Concerning the forthcoming general elections, here's what the ambassador had to say:
“The United States' position on the election is quite clear. For the past years I have been talking about the importance of non-violence in the elections. I have been doing that and I have seen that the civil society and the Nigerian media have taken this up too. I even went to one or two of Tuface's hip-hop concert 'Vote not fight' campaign. So, that is the message the United States will continue to preach, especially to urge all candidates to probably commit themselves that they will not support or engage in violence before, during and after the elections. I think that is key in any democracy,” he said.
He described the recent shooting during a political rally in Rivers State as ugly, saying: “The incident in Rivers was very sad. I condemned it, but that underlines to me why our campaign against violence is so important.”