Your arms refusal only helps Boko Haram – Buhari warns US

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari warned Washington on Wednesday that a US refusal to arm his troops because of “so-called human rights violations” only helps Boko Haram.
The 72-year-old former general has been warmly received in the US capital on his first visit since his March election raised hopes of reform in Africa’s troubled giant.
But he departs with little practical military assistance in his battle against the Islamist militants who have turned the northeast of his country into a bloody war zone.

The US government has vowed to help Nigeria defeat the insurgency but it is prohibited under law from sending weapons to countries that fail to tackle human rights abuses.
“Regretably, the blanket application of the Leahy Law by the United States on the grounds of unproven allegations of human rights violations levelled against our forces has denied us access to appropriate strategic weapons to prosecute the war,” he said.
Addressing an audience of policy-makers, activists and academics in  Washington, Buhari complained that Nigerian forces had been left “largely impotent” in the face of Boko Haram’s campaign of kidnapping and bombings.
“They do not possess the appropriate weapons and technology which we could have had if the so-called human rights violations had not been an obstacle,” he said.
“Unwittingly, and I dare say unintentionally, the application of the Leahy Law Amendment by the United States government has aided and abetted the Boko Haram terrorists.”
He appealed to both the White House and the US Congress to find a way around the law — introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy in 1997 —and to supply his troops with high-tech weapons under a deal “with minimal strings.”