Anti-terrorism: Nigeria switches away from UK. US…Sends 1,200 men to Russia

The alleged snub or non-chalance currently being paid by the UK and US to Nigeria’s plight in the fight against terrorism, may have forced the country to turn to the Far East (Russia and China) for help.

It has emerged that about 1200 Nigerian security personnel including members of the Armed Forces, the police and the Department of State Services, DSS, have so far left for anti-insurgent training in Russia.

Saturday Vanguard reports that the security personnel left Abuja in three batches of 400 at different times, in company of top security officers as well as Russian instructors who had been in the country to part in the initial selection process for the officers.

Diplomatic differences have been reported to be brewing between Nigeria on one hand and US and UK on the other, over the manner in which the fight against the insurgents was being handled. The difference is believed to be behind Nigeria’s attempt to buy arms secretly with the $9.3billion seized in South Africa. The US was also accused of blocking the purchase of a CH-47 Chinook warplane by the Nigerian military from Israel.

A senior security official in Nigeria told the newspaper: “The United States and Britain appear unwilling to provide arms to our armed forces. It is surprising because these are two friendly countries to Nigeria which is under threat from terrorists. We have no option but to look somewhere else for our needs pending when the issues are resolved at the diplomatic level by our government.”

The US, through its embassy’s press attaché, Sean J. McIntosh, denied the allegations but added: “U.S. Departments of State and Defense review all potential arms transfers for their consistency with US policy and interests, as detailed in the US Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, updated by President Obama in January. This includes any requests for one country to transfer US-origin defence items to another country,”

Russia has always been willing to supply weapons and some other logistics to Nigeria and it has been learnt that the country has entered into contract with Russian arms manufacturers for the supply of high calibre weapons to the Nigerian Army to combat the insurgents in the North east. Talks are also on-going with Israel and China.