A top United States Defense Department official criticized Nigeria yesterday for being too slow to adapt in response to the threat of Boko Haram, but said Washington was committed to helping fight the group and safely return more than 200 girls taken from their school a month ago.
“In general Nigeria has failed to mount an effective campaign against Boko Haram,” said the Pentagon’s Principal Director for African Affairs, Alice Friend, in testimony provided to the Senate’s Africa subcommittee ahead of a hearing yesterday.
“The Department has been deeply concerned for some time by how much the Government of Nigeria has struggled to keep pace with Boko Haram’s growing capabilities,” Friend said.
Friend added that Nigerian security forces have been slow to adapt to the threat from the Islamist militant group.
“More troubling,” she said, was that atrocities have been perpetrated by some security forces during operations against the group, which means US human rights law would bar providing assistance to them.
Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Robert Jackson, said in his prepared testimony that Washington has been urging Nigeria to reform its approach to Boko Haram.
“When soldiers destroy towns, kill civilians and detain innocent people with impunity, mistrust takes root,” he said.
Sixteen US Department of Defense personnel with medical, intelligence, counter-terrorism and communications expertise have been assigned exclusively to the mission of advising Nigerian efforts to recover the girls safely, Friend said.
“Our intent is to support Nigerian-led efforts to recover the girls and help catalyze greater efforts to secure the Nigerian population from the menace of Boko Haram,” Friend said.
She also said the Pentagon and Department of State were developing a “regional response” to Boko Haram to improve border security along Nigeria’s frontiers with Chad, Niger and Cameroon. The intention was to detect and respond to movement of Boko Haram members between Nigeria and its neighbours, she said.
Meanwhile, the United State National Security Adviser, Susan Rice has said that the President Barack Obama administration would not rule out providing more military help to Nigeria in locating the 200-plus girls abducted from their school dormitories a month ago by Boko Haram insurgents.
Speaking to women foreign policy leaders yesterday in Washington, Rice emphasized that the girls need to be located before any discussions of something beyond mostly advisory assistance can be held.
Rice said the administration has been “gripped” by the situation, echoing the president and first lady’s sentiment of feeling a personal connection as parents.
“For those of us who are policymakers, but also those of us who are parents, as I am, it’s just heartbreaking to imagine your teenage girl taken away and potentially at risk of being sold into captivity or worse,” Rice said.
But asked by moderator-journalist, Judy Woodruff, about calls from some members of Congress for US Special Forces to assist with the rescue, Rice said Nigeria is, first and foremost, a sovereign nation with responsibility for securing and protecting its citizens.
“To the extent that they make requests of us or others to provide support, we are open to entertaining those. But, obviously, as I said at the outset, the most important thing now is to locate the girls,” she said.
“There is no point in sending in any kind of additional support if we do not know where they are. So, that has to be the first order of business”, Rice said.
It would be recalled that Senator John McCain had a US-based newspaper on Tuesday that the United States should be ready to send in Special Forces to rescue the girls whether the Nigerian government gives permission or not.
“I would not be involved in the niceties of getting the Nigerian government to agree, because if we did rescue these people, there would be nothing but gratitude from the Nigerian government, such as it is,” the Arizona Republican said.
But while Rice would not rule out US military boots on the ground in Nigeria, she emphasized that the scenario was unlikely, even though US surveillance aircraft have provided intelligence and imagery.
“In all likelihood, if we were to do more with respect to a Nigerian request, it would likely be in advisory capacity, which is what we are doing thus far and what we could – can potentially do more of if we had better information on where the girls are located.”