How US is assisting Boko Haram – FG

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari yesterday gave in­sight into how the blanket application of the United States Leahy Law on the grounds of unproven allega­tions of human rights viola­tions levelled against Nige­rian forces was aiding and abetting Boko Haram.

He has therefore appealed to both the executive arm and the US Congress to ex­amine how Washington can provide the country with far more substantial counter-terrorism assistance with minimal strings.

According to him, the Ni­gerian Armed Forces have remained largely impotent in the fight against terrorism because they do not possess the appropriate weapons and technology to match Boko Haram.

The US Leahy Law, is a U.S. human rights law that prohibits the Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to for­eign military units that vio­late human rights with im­punity. It is named after its principal sponsor, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

To implement this law, U.S. embassies and the Bu­reau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour and the appropriate regional bureau of the Department of State vet potential recipients of security assistance. If a unit is found to have been cred­ibly implicated in a serious abuse of human rights, as­sistance is denied until the host nation government takes effective steps to bring the responsible persons within the unit to justice. While the U.S. Government does not publicly report on foreign armed force units it has cut off from receiv­ing assistance, press reports have indicated that security force units in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, Guate­mala, Mexico, Nigeria, Tur­key, Indonesia, and Pakistan have been denied assistance due to the Leahy Law.

President Buhari stated this in his remarks at the United States Institute for Peace (USIP), at an event jointly organize with the Center for Strategic and In­ternational Studies (CSIS), the Atlantic Council, the National Democratic Insti­tute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the International Foun­dation of Electoral Systems (IFES), to provide him a platform to explains his plans for Nigeria.