16 Dec 2007 |
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from LAOLU AKANDE, in Washington DC
New details have emerged on why the US President George W. Bush decided to invite Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua to the White House after the US government had described his election as "deeply flawed" and drew back in its relationship with the Yar'Adua administration because of the election. There are now clear indications that that the rising opposition to the US idea of AFRICOM, a US military command in Africa was akey issue for which President Bush brought the Nigerian president to the White House last Thursday. Ahead of the meeting, a senior Bush administration official had told Empowered Newswirethat the issue of AFRICOM would certainly come up. Asked before the meeting whether both presidents would discuss the issue, the official who spoke on conditions of anonymity explained that President Bush “will use the opportunity to explain to President Yar’Adua our thinking.” The official said AFRICOM has been misunderstood and that the US president will clarify on what AFRICOM is and is not. To nail in a positive response from Yar’Adua a source added that the Americans recalled how the US has helped trained some Nigerian military officers, especially among over 25,000 peacekeepers that the US has trained in Africa. Besides, it was gathered from White House sources that the US government built the camps in Darfur where Nigerian troops have been based and also maintained it until recently when plans are being implemented to handover to the United Nations. Said a source the US thinks that “a country like Nigeria which has benefited from us training the military,” should be made to understand the right concept of AFRICOM. The source added that Nigerians and many Africans think of the US Military Command as meaning US troops however the Command would be more of a capacity building command that will allow the US government to do more of what they have been doing already for African military troops in the discharge of peacekeeping roles in the continent and outside. The US govt believes it has spent a lot of money supporting and training African militaries and do not understand why such a country like Nigeria will not support AFRICOM, which according to US officials would help the US do more for African militaries. A US Military Command’s presence in Africa allows us to do that better, says the top Bush administration official who spoke to The Guardian. Also a week before Yar’Adua arrived the Deputy Commander in charge of Civil-Military Activities of the US Africa Command, Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates spoke in New York with the foreign press, especially African journalists and disclosed that the US Africa Command is not intended to have garrison troops would be based on African soil. Yates, a senior US Diplomat said of the AFRICOM idea “I want to state for the record that there is no intention to have Garrison troops on the continent. There is no intention to have base with Garrison troops. This is to be a headquarters as the joint headquarters that does the planning.” According to her there certainly a desire by the US to have some presence on the continent because “we believe that we can be more value added to the African militaries who want to interface with us if there is some presence. But we will not go anywhere that we’re not invited, and we will not go anywhere where it will cause harm, disrupt ongoing stability and programs.” She further explained that what the US envisioned, if, when invited and AFRICOM moves to the continent “would be to have some sort of regional hub or offices so that we could more effectively with the militaries, whether it’s by a region or connected to organizations. This is what is under discussion and under construction this year specifically.” However this does not completely rule out the presence of US troops in some form, but nothing new Yates said. Her words: “When there are exercises, certainly troops will go, as they have been doing for the last decade. We send a group of people into Niger; they work with the Niger military. They’re there for a month or however long and then they leave and go back to their bases in Europe primarily.” In answer to a question Yates had also hinted that the AFRICOM issue would feature in the Bush-Yar’Adua talks of Thursday at the White House. Although she said she did not know this for a fact however she stated that talking about AFRICOM “would seem logical as a follow-on to our visit (to Nigeria.). During US AFRICOM’s visit to Nigeria, Yates said they “met with the Foreign Minister. We met with the Chief of Defense Staff, General Azazi. We met with the National Security Advisor when we were there.” It is believed that the AFRICOM issue was what clearly swayed the hands of the US government to invite Yar’Adua to White after previous attempts by the Yar’Adua administration to be invited failed. For instance the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the past Obasanjo administration supporters and friends with links in the Bush administration tried making a White House trip earlier. Even a White House source confirmed that then there wasn’t much to discuss so the US government held back. A State Department official last week even stated publicly that "there was a pause in our close relationship," referring to US-Nigeria relations. The U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Todd J. Moss, who made the statement last week, said this was because of the elections of April 2007, which brought Yar'Adua into office. He restated that the elections were "deeply flawed," and "gave us some serious pause as to how close we could be. We expressed our concerns with the Nigerians ... and we set some very clear expectations. I am happy to say that, so far, those expectations have been met." While the diplomatic pause in intensity of the US-Nigeria relations was going onthe US government was running into serious problems regarding its plan to secure African support for it US Military Command for Africa, and then the Americans started reconsidering its stance on having the Nigerian President visit the White House. President Yar’Adua came out of the White House meeting on Thursday declaring Nigeria and even implied African support for AFRICOM. Said
he “we shall partner with AFRICOM to assist not only Nigeria, but also the
African continent to actualize its peace and security… initiative, which is an
initiative to help standby forces of
This was in spite of the fact that the National Council of State had raised objections to the idea only few weeks ago. Foreign Affairs Minister Ojo Maduekwe in a Washington DC interview at the US National Press Club building earlier this year also spoke to US based African journalists including the Voice of America saying Nigeria will never allow or support the US Africa Command. After the White House visit where President Yar'Adua annouced that Nigeria would now partner with the US on AFRICOM, the President and his Foreign Affairs Minister Ojo Maduekwe have been seeking to clarify that Nigeria would not support the stationing of troops in Africa, although US officials also continue to insist that there was no time they intended via AFRICOM to station a military base in Africa in the form of Garrsion troops.
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