Page 12 - AUA TRAVLLER

Boko Haram tops agenda for
Nigerian leader meet with Obama

Nigeria’s
new President
Muhammadu
Buhari travels
to the United
States on Sunday
for a meeting
with President
Barack Obama
to mend relations
battered by his
predecessor’s
failures to fight
an Islamic
uprising and
corruption in
Africa’s biggest
oil producer.

12 BUHARI’S March election, hailed as the first democratic change in the 1980s, Buhari is expected to have more success motivating
troops demoralized by poor equipment and bad leadership.
of power in the West African nation that has suffered decades of mili- Nigerian soldiers have said they are outnumbered and outgunned
tary rule, has already resulted in pledges from the U.S. to help hunt by Boko Haram and often are sent into battle with no food and just
down stolen funds and increased military aid to fight the insurgency. 30 bullets each.
Suicide bombings and village attacks blamed on Nigeria’s homegrown “Privately, the new security commanders are warning of no quick
Boko Haram extremists have killed hundreds of people at home and fixes ... arguing that Boko Haram infiltration of the army and civilian
in neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon just in the past two weeks. structures is a major unresolved difficulty,” political analyst Antony
Buhari’s May 29 inauguration was followed by a surge in attacks by Goldman wrote in African Arguments.
the 6-year-old uprising that aims to form an Islamic state and has Goldman said a military overhaul could include returning procure-
killed more than 13,000 people while driving 1.5 million from their ment to the Defense Ministry, a duty usurped by the former National
homes. Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, who is now being investigated for
Buhari has also inherited a firestorm of other problems, including “felony, corruption, misuse of power and possession of firearms,”
near-empty coffers, tens of thousands of unpaid civil servants and according to the State Security Service Saturday.
an income slashed by halved oil prices. Nigeria, the world’s seventh Cleaning up the military may also unblock sales of U.S. attack heli-
most populous nation at 170 million, is the U.S.’s biggest trading copters. U.S. law forbid the sale of certain arms to militaries accused
partner in Africa. of gross human rights abuses and Amnesty International has accused
The Monday meeting with Obama is expected to focus on more mili- the army’s leadership of complicity in the death of 8,000 detainees
tary aid, recovering stolen funds and reviving flagging investment in in the battle against Boko Haram.
Nigeria’s corruption-riddled petroleum industry. Buhari has promised to investigate and prosecute perpetrators.
Ahead of the meeting, Buhari, a dictator in the 1980s lauded as the He has also pledged to tackle root causes that fuel Islamic extrem-
only Nigerian leader not to have enriched himself from state coffers, ism. The northeast is the poorest part of the country with some of the
has been cleaning house. world’s highest illiteracy rates.
He laid off scores of former ruling party members that had been given “We’re looking forward to what we can do with a president who has
lucrative positions on the boards of state owned companies and fired staked out an agenda that we think is the right agenda at the right
the entire top echelon of the military he has accused of corruption. time,” the U.S. National Security Council’s Grant Harris said last week.
As a retired army major general who put down a small Islamic revolt
Monday, July 20 2015 - ARUBA TRAVELLER
INTERNATIONAL