The United States will offer to help Nigeria’s new leader track down billions of dollars in stolen assets and increase U.S. military assistance to fight Islamic militants, U.S. officials said, as Washington seeks to “reset” ties with Africa’s biggest economy.
“President Barack Obama has long seen Nigeria as arguably the most important strategic country in sub-Saharan Africa,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken told Reuters. “The question is would there be an opportunity to deepen our engagement and that opportunity is now.”
The improving ties with Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, come as U.S. relations have cooled with two other traditional Africa powers – Egypt and South Africa.
U.S. officials have said they are willing to send military trainers to help Nigeria counter a six-year-old northern insurgency by the Boko Haram Islamist movement.
“We’ve made clear there are additional things that can be done especially now that there is a new military leadership in place,” a senior U.S. official said.
Another senior U.S. official said Washington was urging Buhari, a Muslim from the country’s north, to step up regional cooperation against the militants and to provide more aid to afflicted communities to reduce the group’s recruiting power.
Buhari has said his priorities are strengthening Nigeria’s economy, hard-hit by the fall in oil prices, boosting investment, and tackling “the biggest monster of all” – corruption.
“Here too he is looking to deepen collaboration and one of the things he is focused on is asset recovery,” the official said. “He is hopeful we can help them recover some of that.”
In 2014, the United States took control of more than $480 million siphoned away by former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha and his associates into banks around the world.
Washington has broad powers to track suspicious funds and enforce sanctions against individuals.
Jonathan fired Nigeria’s central bank governor in February last year after he raised questions about the disappearance of about $20 billion in oil revenues.
Reuters
Source: abegmusic news line