The United States will send a team to Nigeria in the next few weeks
to discuss with the new government ways to renew cooperation in the
fight against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, a senior U.S.
diplomat said on Thursday.
Washington has quickly reached out to new President Muhammadu Buhari
since his election victory in March and sent U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry to his inauguration last week to underscore U.S. interest in
working with his government.
Tensions emerged between the former government of President Goodluck
Jonathan and the Obama administration last year over corruption and
human rights abuses by the Nigerian military in its campaign to crush
Boko Haram.
In his inauguration speech, Buhari vowed to defeat Boko Haram and
called the group, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Syria
and Iraq in March, “mindless” and “godless.”
“With the new government we are optimistic we can reset the
relationship,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Linda
Thomas-Greenfield, told a congressional hearing. “We want to work with
him and have expressed that to him.”
She said Buhari had committed both publicly and privately to “do
everything possible to address the situation in terms of resources and
staff” to tackle Boko Haram, which launched its insurgency in 2009.
U.S. officials have said the United States could send more advisers
to Nigeria to train its military and help boost the economy, the largest
in Africa, through more investment in its oil and gas sector.
Thomas-Greenfield said the United States was encouraged that Buhari’s
first trips were to neighbors Niger and Chad, which are part of a
multi-national force being set up to fight Boko Haram’s insurgency in
the Lake Chad region.
Nigeria’s Major-General Tukur Buratai has been appointed to head the
new force, which will be funded partly by the international community.
“He is someone we have worked with and someone we feel will be a
positive force on the multinational task force,” she said, adding that
Buhari was still studying options to fund a stepped- up effort to tackle
Boko Haram.
Analysts say the challenge for the United States is to work with
Buhari while giving him time to address problems in the Nigerian
military.
A report by rights group Amnesty International this week reinforced
U.S. concerns over human rights abuses by Nigerian security forces.
In a 133-page report issued on Wednesday, Amnesty said more than
8,000 people died while being held prisoner by the army in the campaign
against Boko Haram, many of them murdered, starved or tortured.
Reuters
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