Nigeria Won't Get Weapons From US To Fight Boko Haram

US didn’t let Nigeria to buy Cobra helicopters from Israel. Photo: AFP

The US officials say they consider Boko Haram a serious problem but still don’t trust Nigerian military enough to give them American weapons. The US officials think that the Nigerian troops may lose these newest weapons to their Boko Haram enemies.

The US officials told press last week that US is going to help Chad, Niger and Mali that have borders with Nigeria, in fight with Boko Haram, giving these countries military aid worth $35 million.

However, Nigeria won’t get any help from US to fight Boko Haram militants because Nigerian troops aren’t credible enough to deal with them.

Nigeria accused US of blocking military aid when it is vital to fight Boko Haram insurgency. Earlier the US officials blocked the purchase of American-made combat helicopters by Nigeria, which wanted to buy them from Israel to use in operations against Islamists. American officials explained that they blocked the approval of the deal because of the poor human rights record of Nigerian army.

But as defense experts think the human rights are not the real problem that worries the US. The real reason behind that is that Americans are simply afraid their newest weapons may be seized by insurgents from Nigerian military considered as largely corrupt.

“My understanding is that there were leaks or moles inside the Nigerian military, who were leaking information to Boko Haram,” told press defense analyst Ben Moores, “They were leaking certain bits of information”.

American officials also state that Nigerian security budget worth $.8 billion would be more than enough to tackle Boko Haram in case of correct spending. But as Sarah Sewall, the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights stated in her report , “corruption prevents supplies as basic as bullets and transport vehicles from reaching the front lines of the struggle against Boko Haram”, adding that “Nigeria will need to seriously tackle corruption if it is to succeed in stamping out Boko Haram”.

Earlier, a month before winning presidential election, Nigeria’s president-elect Muhammadu Buhari told press that Nigerian military can’t crush Boko Haram because of “misappropriation of the resources provided by the government for weapons”.

However, the US officials assure public they are going to restore military ties with Nigeria in case Buhari fulfills his election promises to tackle corruption after taking office as president.