Federal Government stops training of Nigerian soldiers by the US

A statement from the Information Office of the US embassy in Abuja yesterday said the Federal Government of Nigeria has cancelled the training of a battalion of the Nigerian army by the US.

The cancellation of the training according to the US would have allowed the soldiers to build their capacity to counter the Boko Haram insurgency.  And the US says it greatly regrets the premature termination of the training.

 

The statement reads, “At the request of the Nigerian government, the United States will discontinue its training of a Nigerian Army battalion. The first two phases of training were conducted between April and August 2014, and had provided previously untrained civilian personnel with basic soldiering skills.

 

“Based on mutual assessment of the Nigerian Army and U.S. trainers, a third iteration of training was agreed upon with the intent of developing the battalion into a unit with advanced infantry skills.

 

“We regret the premature termination of this training, as it was to be the first in a larger planned project that would have trained additional units with the goal of helping the Nigerian Army build capacity to counter Boko Haram.”

 

 

 A source from the Office of the Federal Government says the Nigerian soldiers were already well trained.  That what they need to overcome the terrorists are weapons and not training.  He questioned the reason why the US government is assisting Iraq to fight ISIS by providing the country with weapons to defeat the terrorists and yet talking of training the Nigerian army.

 

If you recollect last month the Nigerian government cried out that the US government has refused to sell to them critical and important weapons they need to fight and defeat the Boko Haram.  The US government replied stating that their reasons for not selling the weapons were based on human right abuses which the Federal government have refused to addressed.