‘We’Ll Resume Military Training with US to End Terror’
President-elect, Major General Muhammadu Buhari has pledged to resume military training with the United States as part of a comprehensive effort to end terrorism in Nigeria.
The incoming Federal Government will also work with Nigeria’s neighbours in rooting out the Boko Haram sect from the region.
General Buhari made the pledge in an opinion article he wrote, and which was published in the Tuesday 14, 2015 edition of the New York Times, to mark the first year of the abduction of about 200 Nigerian girls from a school in Chibok, a town in Borno State.
Also on Tuesday, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki, pledged that the Sambisa stronghold of the Boko Haram would be liberated by the military before Gen. Buhari takes office on May 29.
Buhari, in the letter, blamed the outgoing administration of President Goodluck Jonathan for acting too little, too late on the Chibok girls when they were abducted. He said: “When Boko Haram attacked a school in the town of Chibok, in northeastern Nigeria, kidnapping more than 200 girls, on the night of April 14, 2014, the people of my country were aghast. Across the world, millions of people joined them in asking: How was it possible for this terrorist group to act with such impunity? It took nearly two weeks before the government even commented on the crime.”
He continued: “This lack of reaction was symptomatic of why the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan was swept aside last month — the first time an incumbent president has been successfully voted out of office in the history of our nation.”
He accused the outgoing administration of being blinded by corruption and neglecting the citizenry. His words: “For too long they ruled, not governed, and in doing so had become so focused on their own self-interest and embroiled in corruption that the duty to react to the anguish suffered by their citizens had become alien to them.”
On his pledges, Buhari said: “My administration would welcome the resumption of a military training agreement with the United States, which was halted during the previous administration. We must, of course, have better coordination with the military campaigns our African allies, like Chad and Niger, are waging in the struggle against Boko Haram. But, in the end, the answer to this threat must come from within Nigeria.”
Sambo pledged that the Nigerian military would reclaim the Sambisa forest before President Jonathan hands over power.
Speaking to PRNigeria, a media organisation that distributes press statements of Nigeria’s security agencies, Sambo said that Sambisa forest, the most notable territory still controlled by Boko Haram, would have since been liberated but for the unfavourable weather condition prevailing in the area. He said the terrain has been studied and troops to be deployed were ready.
“Right now, all Boko Haram camps, except Sambisa Forest have been destroyed,” he was quoted as saying.
“Every movement of the terrorists is being monitored and every necessary detail is being taken care of to rid the country of the last bastion of terrorists’ infestation,” he added.
He spoke about the concern of the Jonathan government and that of every Nigerian citizen over the welfare of the Chibok girls and urged Nigerians to be patient as the military completes the routing of terrorists.
