Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said Tuesday a multinational African
force will be in place within 10 days to take the fight to the Islamic
extremist group Boko Haram that has killed thousands and was behind the
abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls.
He
said his government is open to freeing detained militants in exchange
for the girls' freedom, but only if it finds credible Boko Haram leaders
to negotiate with.
"I think
Nigeria will make as much sacrifice as humanly possible to get the girls
back. This is our main objective," Buhari said, a day after meeting
with President Barack Obama.
Buhari spoke at the presidential
guest house opposite the White House in a room decorated with murals of
ceremonial Washington. He wore a traditional embroidered hat, popular
among Muslims in northern Nigeria.
Buhari,
a former general, last week fired the service chiefs of the once-mighty
Nigerian military, which he has accused of corruption. But he expressed
confidence that the Islamists that have launched suicide bombings and
village attacks since his inauguration, killing hundreds, would be
surrounded and eliminated with the help of neighboring Benin, Chad,
Cameroon and Niger. He said the multinational force would be ready by
the end of the month.
"We are
going to deny them recruitment. We are going to deny them free movement
across borders. We are going to deny them training. We are going to deny
them receiving reinforcement in terms of equipment," said Buhari, who
studied 35 years ago at the U.S. Army War College.
Boko Haram in
March declared an affiliation with the Islamic State group, and Buhari
said it has links with Islamist militants in northern Mali. But he
predicted that the multinational force could break the back of Boko
Haram within 18 months.Despite the fighting talk, the Nigerian leader said he remained open to negotiations over the kidnapped girls but said it was first necessary to establish that those claiming to negotiate on behalf of the insurgents were really Boko Haram leaders who know the girls' location and condition.
Dozens of the schoolgirls escaped in the days after the abduction, but 219 remain missing.
A human rights activist told AP this month that the extremists are offering to free the girls in exchange for the release of captured militant leaders. Buhari said: "We just can't say yes or no in a sort of an impulsive manner. We have to establish the facts before we agree" to negotiations.
Buhari's early visit to Washington is a sign of the importance the U.S. attaches to good relations with Nigeria, the world's seventh-most populous nation at 170 million and America's top trading partner in Africa. Top U.S. trade and finance officials have met the Nigerian delegation, and Buhari was meeting Tuesday with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, and CIA Director John Brennan, where he would be urging more American help against Boko Haram.
"The
United States is very clear of the situation. What we need is
intelligence, we need training facilities, we need some equipment," he
said.
Buhari acknowledged U.S.
concerns over human rights abuses by Nigeria's military. Amnesty
International has accused the Nigerian army's leadership of complicity
in the death of 8,000 detainees in the battle against Boko Haram. Such
concerns prompted Washington last year to block the sale of U.S. attack
helicopters. Buhari said that new military chiefs were retraining forces
and would adhere to internationally acceptable rules of engagement.
Nigeria
also wants U.S. help in recovering government funds and the proceeds of
crude oil exports that have been illegally diverted from the nation's
coffers, also hit by the decline in world oil prices.
In
a Washington Post opinion commentary on Monday, Buhari wrote that $150
billion in funds have been stolen in the past decade and held in foreign
bank accounts on behalf of former, corrupt officials.
No comments:
Post a Comment