US envoy lambasts Washington for failing to support Nigeria's fight against Boko Haram

NIGERIA'S ambassador to the US Adebowale Adefuye has criticised Washington for failing to come to the country's assistance in its fight against Boko Haram by refusing to sell the necessary arms and equipment to the armed forces.

Over the last year, Boko Haram has stepped up its insurgency across Nigeria, seizing large swathes of territory, kidnapping girls and women and detonating bombs. Nigeria's armed forces have been overwhelmed by the terrorists' activities as Boko Haram appears better equipped, motivated and organised than them.

Helplessly overwhelmed, Nigeria has appealed to the international community for assistance but the US has so far failed to come to the country's aid. Washington has long used the excuse that Nigeria's armed forces commit atrocities but this has not stopped the US from selling arms to other countries like Israel, who commit worse crimes against the Palestinians.

Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this week, Ambassador Adefuye blasted the US for refusing to sell Nigeria the weapons needed to deliver the killer punch to defeat Boko Haram. He also used the opportunity to dismissed as rumour, hear-says and exaggerated accounts, allegations of human rights abuses by the Nigerian Army in its crackdown against the Islamist extremists.

Ambassador Adefuye said: “The Nigerian leadership is not satisfied with the scope, nature and content of the United States’ support for us in our struggle against terrorists. We find it difficult to understand how and why in spite of the US presence in Nigeria with their sophisticated military technology Boko Haram should be expanding and becoming more deadly.”

A small team of US military and State Department advisors have been in Nigeria for months seeking to help track down some 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in mid-April. Despite this, Boko Haram's violence and the military’s response to it has led to over 10,000 people being killed over the past five years and left hundreds of thousands more homeless.

Boko Haram now controls more than two dozen towns and about 13 local government areas across northeastern Nigeria. While condemning the attacks by Boko Haram, the US has repeatedly called for the Nigerian Army to show restraint as it seeks to hunt down the militants and not give in to reprisals.

Ambassador Adefuye insisted, however, that the fault lay with Washington, adding that US allegations of widespread human rights abuses by the Nigerian Army cannot be substantiated by facts. He said half-truths had been spread by President Goodluck Jonathan’s rivals and human rights groups with an agenda.

“The US government has up till today refused to grant Nigeria’s request to purchase lethal equipment that would have brought down the terrorists within a short time. There is no use giving us the type of support that enables us to deliver light jabs to the terrorists when what we need to give them is the killer punch.

“The terrorists threaten our corporate existence and territorial integrity. A friend in need is a friend indeed and the true test of friendship is in the times of adversity,” Ambassador Adefuye added