The United States has offered to cooperate with Nigeria in the fight against terrorism. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement yesterday that Washington was willing to work with Abuja “to deter and degrade the terrorists that threaten the United States.”
The statement came following a meeting between Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu in Washington in the aftermath of the recent classification of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern by President Donald Trump and his threat to attack Nigeria for what he called genocide against Christians.
Hegseth at the meeting asked the federal government to “take both urgent and enduring action to stop violence against Christians.”
He said in a post on X that America’s Department of War “is working aggressively with Nigeria” to end the alleged persecution of Christians.
Ribadu was at the head of a high powered delegation that also included Attorney General of the Federation and Justice Minister Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Chief of Defence Staff, General Olufemi Oluyede and Police Inspector General Kayode Egbetokun.
On Wednesday, the team met with Rep Riley Moore who, on November 7, introduced a resolution in the house “condemning the ongoing persecution of Christians in Nigeria and supporting President Trump’s announcement to officially designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern”.
On Thursday, the House held a hearing on Nigeria where chairman of the House’s Sub Committee on Africa Chris Smith called for a review of the Leahy law’s restrictions as they apply to Nigeria.
The Law restricts Nigeria’s deployment of the A-29 Super Tucano aircraft which were bought from the US under the Buhari administration.
One of the restrictions is that the aircraft cannot be deployed beyond the North East. Another is that they can only be used against terrorists and insurgents, and not bandits. This prompted the service chiefs at the time to ask the Senate and the House of Representatives to classify bandits as terrorists. Nigeria says the restrictions are hampering the fight against terrorism.
Smith agreed with this view and said the restrictions be lifted in certain circumstances, such as when assisting Nigeria in its fight against groups like Boko Haram, and for better implementation of its human rights vetting process to support Nigerian forces in fighting terrorism.
The law, according to him, is intended to prevent U.S. support for human rights abusers, but its effectiveness depends on proper implementation. He emphasised that the law allows for the creation of “clean” military units by identifying and separating human rights violators from those who are not guilty.
The late President Muhammadu Buhari, in a July 22 address in Washington, lashed out at US laws that ban the sale of weapons to foreign militaries accused of human rights violations, saying such restrictions would only aid the insurgency.
“Unwittingly, and I dare say unintentionally, the application of the Leahy Law amendment by the United States Government has aided and abetted the Boko Haram terrorists,” Buhari said in an address at the United States Institute of Peace that was co-hosted by the Atlantic Council.
The “blanket application” of the Leahy laws on the grounds of “unproven allegations” of human rights violations by Nigerian security forces, he said, had denied his military access to the appropriate weapons to fight the militants.
“In the face of abduction of innocent schoolgirls … indiscriminate bombings of civilians… our forces have remained largely impotent because they do not possess the appropriate weapons and technology, which we could have had the so-called human rights violations not been an obstacle,” he said.
“You want to train a battalion of men to go and counter terrorism… but you don’t want us to buy equipment from you,” a former chief of Defence Intelligence Rear Admiral Gabriel E. Okoi (rtd) was also quoted as saying at a meeting hosted by the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.
“The US is doing its best, but the Leahy Law is hindering our cooperation. “Our friends disappointed us. We could not get the arms we needed, nor could we get the ammunition.”