TWENTY-Four hours after US Secretary of State, John Kerry met President
Goodluck Jonathan and former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari,
pledging his country’s determination to work with Nigeria and other
countries to end activities of the Boko Haram terrorists, the Israeli
media, yesterday, revealed that the US stopped Nigeria’s purchase of
Chinook military helicopters from Israel to fight Boko Haram.
The sale/transfer of such aircraft required a review by the US, to determine its “consistency with US
policy interests,” Obama administration officials told The Jerusalem Post.
It quoted White House Assistant Press Secretary and Director for
Strategic Communications, Ned Price, as saying that reviews of such kind
take place in the case of “any requests for one country to transfer
US-origin defence items to another country.”
Nigeria’s largest arms purchase ever reported was from Israel in 2007,
in a deal with Aeronautics Systems worth $260 million. That company is
Israeli, however, not American.
A single Chinook costs roughly $40 million to produce.
Chat212 had reported the Nigerian military in the past as saying that
the country also resorted to training its security personnel on
terrorist encounters in Russia and China because of the refusal of the
US administration to sell arms to the government following “unfounded
allegations of human rights violations by our troops,” among others.
However, the reports quoted unnamed Nigerian officials as also saying
that the US blocked the order “after the office of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu had initially approved the purchase.”
Policy directives
US officials told The Jerusalem Post that such transfers must be
consistent with a policy directive revised by President Barack Obama in
January, which outlines the criteria for conventional weapons sales.
The policy requires US transfers, including Boeing aircraft, to take
into account “the risk that significant change in the political or
security situation of the recipient country could lead to inappropriate
end-use” of the weapons.
While the Nigerian report suggests Abuja sought the purchase of Boeing
CH-47 Chinook helicopters, Israel predominantly uses Sikorsky CH-53
aircraft for missions involving heavy-lift transport. Both Boeing and
Sikorsky are American companies.
Israeli laws concerning the export of arms is less restrictive than
those in the United States. Israel, however, is a member of the United
Nations Register of Conventional Arms and, in 2009, reported to the body
that Israel, in practice, refrains from transfers “where there is
imminent risk that arms might be internally diverted, illegally
proliferated and re-transferred, or fall into the hands of terrorists or
entities and states that support or sponsor them.”
Sixteen nations operate the Chinook helicopter, none of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Nigerian officials were reported as saying that “we had even tried to
procure arms from Russia but this was stalled because of the Ukrainian
crisis, thus compelling us to turn to other nations like Israel. But
even this has been frustrated by the US.”
They further said it was not just in the area of arms procurement that
US has been most unhelpful, adding that contrary to its public stance
that it was assisting in the rescue operations of the abducted Chibok
secondary school girls, it has done nothing significant to help Nigeria
in this regard.
Other intelligence sources also cited the fact that the US has refused
to share intelligence with Nigerian security forces in a timely manner.
They said: “When we complained, they started sharing some intelligence, but days after such intelligence is of little value”.
Boko Haram gained notoriety around the world after its militants
kidnapped 276 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in
Borno State in April last year. The US sent military personnel to assist
in finding the girls.
Amnesty connection
In August, Amnesty International said it had gathered video footage,
images and testimonies that “implicates the Nigerian military in war
crimes” which the Nigerian government vehemently denied.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Nigeria recently that the
United States remains committed to helping the government combat Boko
Haram.
“We are engaging with the Nigerian government at all levels to identify
areas of counter-terrorism cooperation,” other state officials earlier
said.
This was contrary to what the US ambassador to Nigeria James Entwistle
told reporters last October while speaking on the refusal by his country
to sell high calibre weapons to Nigeria. Entwistle told reporters that
“the kind of question that we have to ask is, let’s say we give certain
kinds of equipment to the Nigerian military and that is then used in a
way that affects the human situation, if I approve that, I’m responsible
for that. We take that responsibility very seriously.”
US halted Israeli arms transfer to Nigeria
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Oleh
healthandwealth
