US complies with Nigerian Government's request to end training of her soldiers

The United States has abruptly ended the training of a battalion of the Nigeria Army, at the request of the Federal Government.

A statement from the Information Office of the US Embassy in Abuja, on Monday, regretted what it described as the premature termination of the exercise programme, which it said would have trained the Nigerian soldiers to build their capacity to counter the Boko Haram terrorists.

It said that the first two phases of the training were conducted between April and August, 2014, noting that it had provided untrained civilian personnel with basic soldiering skills.

The US government, however, said it would continue other aspects of the extensive bilateral security relationship, as well as all other assistance programmes.

According to reports from Punch,a source in a strategic office close to the Federal Government operations, said Nigeria had more pressing problems to deal with than the training of military personnel, noting that members of the Nigeria Army “are well trained already and they don’t need any further training from the Americans.”

The source said, “Nigeria is facing a more pressing problems now; we need weapons to combat Boko Haram and not training. The Americans are supplying weapons and assisting Iraq to fight ISIS, but they are talking of training here. Is Nigeria not facing the same threat as Iraq that they are assisting? What we need are weapons and not training, our security personnel have all the training they required.”