The US Embassy in Nigeria
announced this week that Nigeria’s
military had cancelled specialised
training by American soldiers on
fighting Boko Haram militants.
A former US ambassador said the
move was puzzling, given the
Nigerian military’s struggles to
defeat the terrorist groups, which
had taken control of parts of the
country’s North-east.
Since April, US soldiers have been
training a battalion of about 600
Nigerian troops on how to take on
Islamic extremist group, Boko
Haram. The Americans have also
provided non-lethal equipment like
vehicles and uniforms.
The acting defence and army attaché
at the US Embassy in Abuja,
Lieutenant Colonel John Cantwell,
told the Voice of America (VOA) he
was not clear why the Nigerians
decided to stop the training.
“No, we did not receive any specific
reason as to why they wanted to
cancel the training. But their
notification was in response to a
request that we had sent to them
requesting their intention regarding
moving forward with the third phase
of training,” he said.
Boko Haram has scored numerous
successes in its campaign to control
and implement Sharia law across
north-eastern Nigeria - terrorising
the population, bombing, killing and
kidnapping thousands of people,
overrunning bases and seizing
territory from Nigeria’s military.
That is why former US Ambassador
to Nigeria John Campbell said
Nigeria’s move to cut the training
short was baffling.
“What on earth were the Nigerians
thinking of to simply cancel a
training program. And to me that is
a complete mystery, because I do
not see how it advances their own
interests in any way,” he said.
Nigeria military spokesman, Major
General Chris Olukolade, declined to
be interviewed, but in a text message
called the cancellation a “purely
strategic action,” and did not explain
further.
Nigeria’s military has battled Boko
Haram for nearly five years and
there have been numerous reports
of soldiers being outgunned by the
militants or simply running away.
Nigerian troops played vital roles in
peacekeeping missions in Liberia and
Sierra Leone during those countries’
wars.
But Campbell said since a 1990 coup
attempt against then-military ruler
General Ibrahim Babangida, recent
civilian administrations have
preferred to keep the military weak.
“In other words, how do you reduce
the coup-making potential of the
military? Well, what you do is starve
it for resources. So I think that
accounts, in part at least, for the
transformation of the Nigerian
military from being, by far, the best
in Africa to one which now, if news
reports are to be credited, regularly
runs from firefights with Boko
Haram,” he said.
Nigeria’s ambassador to the United
States recently laid the blame for the
military’s failures on Washington. In
a speech last month, he criticized
the United States for not providing
Abuja with more weapons support.
But Campbell said US hands were
tied by federal law. International
rights groups have repeatedly
criticized Nigeria’s military for killing
and torturing civilians, charges the
Nigerian ambassador dismissed in
his speech.
Meanwhile, a law known as the Leahy
amendment prohibits the US from
supporting militaries that are
thought to be involved in human
rights violations.
“American military training of
Nigerians, at this particular point in
time, is inherently highly limited. It
is limited by the Leahy amendment,
amongst other things. Nevertheless,
it made no sense to me at all that
the Nigerian side, would terminate a
training programme,” said Campbell.
US officials said they would continue
other training with the Nigerian
military.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/nigerian-military-training-cancellation-baffles-us-experts/195764/

Nigeria isn't ready to tackle BH. When they r ready BH won't be a problem.

Everyone is playing politics with it because the bombings are not done close to government house/establishment or aso rock.

Let wait n see how the drama unfold itself..
Bt I think russia are going to do better than USA.. Pitin

Bleep The U.S! Bunch of hypocrite! Which human rite? Ur law shud av an exception for terosrist groups, dem dey wear uniform? Abeg e ko si jare! We don port go Russia make e no pain una

its not by force, we don't trust them any more. if a teacher hates me,there's nothing good he or she will teach me. instead he will teach me how to fail.so let them keep their training to themselves. China and Russia better.

Men!

Instead your papa go give you garri no sugar take go school everyday when e fit afford burger. e beta make im no give you anything make everybody know say your papa no wan give you food. I support FG on this. Training Ko Training Ni
*modified*
Even the US army with all their training will flee in the face of the nature of attacks our military receives from Boko haram (suicide bombings, weapons that matches ours, and being used to the conflict terrain), so we need weapons now not training.

We should chase the useless yanks out of our country. They are of no use and it is clear their prescience in the northeast is to support, arm and train Boko Haram.

If I had my way any foriegners located in the northeast would be treated like a spy and shot on sight.

I think the Americans are the ones hiding their heads in the sand here. The impression they are trying to create here is that they just started military training of our boys in April. I don't think that is exactly the truth, the Americans have always trained our military boys as far back as I can remember. At least this link will give credence to that: http://www.africafocus.org/docs03ej/mil0303.php

What is actually baffling is that after decades of training our military boys, their trainers turn around to accuse those they trained of human rights abuse. It is either the trainees were taught right (how to 'abuse human rights') or the trainers were not good enough to impart how not to abuse human rights. The Nigerian government has to review her engagements with her partners and streamline where she put her resources and who her friends really are. The trainings were not free, we paid for them. We chose Americans over other countries for some reasons and those reasons do not hold up any more. They train our boys and turn around to accuse them of human right abuse, they came to help us take down BH and rescue the 'Chibok girls' but turned around to accuse our boys of being weak. And besides, Americans have no history of defeating insurgency anywhere in the world. They have not faced home grown terrorist group with deep engagement with local communities and political and religious leaders before, they have not experienced locals strapping bombs on themselves and walking into a mall to explode it, so as far as I am concerned, they have nothing to teach us on our present challenge. Actually, all their engagement with terrorists in foreign soils escalates the situation. To kill Osama, they violated another countries air space, violated their sovereignty which is an act of war in itself, swooped on the man when he was fast asleep and had the means and option to capture him alive and extract him alive to face 'justice through the law courts', they chose to kill the man extra-judicially.

I have no love for Osama but what they are accusing our military of doing, they did more. Maybe, just maybe, they are the ones teaching our boys how to 'abuse human rights' and based on that, the Nigerian government has to cancel such cancerous trainings. That could be seen as the first step in fighting 'human right abuse' in our military.

The yanks desire to setup AFRICOM base in the gulf of Guinea has been shattered by this latest development.

What their problem,we don't want their training again.na by force

Sorry America but that was one of the conditions for the Russian deal, Americans cannot train Nigerians on how to handle Russia made weapons

it dey pain them for body. imagine double standard. They are training our soldier on counter terrorism and at the end of the day they have no weapon to work with. Later they will screen book haram has more weapons than us. mstchew!!!

Nigeria has the right to cancel any deal that is not in her interest. If the US don't like it then its non of our business. They can go and hug transformer.

The US are only concerned about the advancement of their interest...they don't care if Nigeria burns.

It is f-cking hypocritical of the US to support terrorists in Syria-the same terrorists they trained are now grouped in a coalition called Isis.

The US send weapons to Al-maliki of Iraqi government when they knew he was fighting a sectarian war against the other tribes-until recently when things escalated,they now searched for a popular candidate to lead the country.

Nigeria can not be waiting forever for America to show her support in time of need-sighting dumb human rights assertions,when they clearly see how boko haram is killing maiming and kidnaping kids and women.

America bombed and killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi's and Afghans just to soother their nerves after 911 and they are f-cking talking about human rights?

Let's just hope Russia accepts our hand of friendship cos the Russians are real while yankees are phony in this international relations game.

The US military is of no use to us and the FG should as a matter of urgency sent those spying yanks out of Nigeria asap.

So good riddance and they can as well stick AFRICOM up their **S.

So the US provided the Nigerian military with non lethal aid like vehicles and uniforms....did we tell them we need uniforms??

They should stop lying to us abt human rights, Israel kills thousands of Palestinians every year nobody said anything human rights Egyptian military kills hundreds every year yet America gives them military aid worth over 2bn dollars,

I don't even blame the US I blame our corrupt politicians our corrupt military generals who prefer building houses in Abuja than equipping military

Russia needs money now they will see fighter jets to any dick and Harry, can somebody tell me what we r still doing with the Americans??