Nigeria cancel US training to fight boko haram

The federal government of Nigeria on monday announced the cancellation of the training of military battalion which was suppose to help the Nigerian army to fight the Boko Haram terrorist group which has established itself has a torn in the flesh of Nigeria. The training was early scheduled to be carried over by the US government.
In a statement issued by the embassy “We regret 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,”.


 “The U.S. government will continue other aspects of the extensive bilateral security relationship, as well as all other assistance programs.”
The U.S. State Department confirmed the discontinuation of the program in an email to the Military Times and also said it regretted the “premature termination of this training.”

Caitlin Poling, an expert on Africa and counterterrorism issues at the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), said in an interview that Nigeria’s decision to end the U.S. program was “very shortsighted” and that it would “absolutely” affect U.S. and regional efforts to fight Boko Haram.
 “The [Nigerian] government has been our biggest obstacle in countering Boko Haram,” she said. “We’ve been offering greater assistance than we currently have in place for years—they’ve been very reluctant to accept it.”


Nigerian Ambassador Ade Adefuye said last month that “our people are not very happy with the content of America’s support in the struggle against Boko Haram,” citing a lack of intelligence sharing and U.S. weapons support. U.S. officials have raised concerns about alleged human rights abuses and corruption among Nigerian forces and are barred by law from training some military units.
Poling said Nigerian forces are notorious for mishandling military equipment and skimming money off the top of projects to line their own pockets. The military was reportedly unable to use Israeli surveillance drones to track more than 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram earlier this year because of poor maintenance after it bought them.