The United States Government has
said that there are no signs that
Nigeria will disintegrate before,
during or after the February
general elections.
While explaining that Nigeria was
indeed facing “big challenges,” the
US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. James
Entwistle, stated that the problems
at stake were surmountable.
According to the top American
envoy, Nigerians should “throw out
of the window” the idea from
“some think-tank or somebody
outside the (US) government”
stating that Nigeria was going to
fall apart in 2015.
Entwistle spoke in Lagos on
Thursday, during an interactive
session with select journalists on
the recent donation of a US naval
ship, christened, “NNS Okpabana”
to the Nigerian Navy.
The US diplomat said, “I have been
plagued by the question (on
Nigeria’s 2015 disintegration) and I
have gone back to look and I can’t
find any government report that
said Nigeria would disintegrate in
2015. Maybe some think-tank or
somebody outside the government
said it; I don’t know.
“But in my opinion as the US
Ambassador to this country, I am
not worried in the least that
Nigeria is going to disintegrate in
2015. Regardless of what someone
may have said, the question is that
we are now here in 2015: Do we
see signs that Nigeria is going to
disintegrate or fall apart or
something? I don’t know what you
think. But I don’t see those signs.
“But I see signs of growth,
optimism and I see that to
minimise the challenges that you
have, in this life, you have to keep
on keeping on, and I think the
future is quite bright.”
Entwistle added that if the Federal
Government did what was needed
to be done in the coming years,
especially as pertaining to
“security, corruption and all of
these things,” the future of Nigeria
would be “very bright.”
He debunked the insinuation that
the President Barack Obama
administration had imposed “an
arms embargo” on Nigeria
following the reported refusal of
the American government to sell
Cobra helicopters to the Federal
Government to prosecute the
ongoing war against terrorism.
Citing human rights considerations
for the development, Entwistle
hinted that the US Diplomatic
Mission to Nigeria was “still talking
about a number of other types of
equipment and different types of
helicopters that might be more
appropriate” for the Nigerian
military services.
Respecting human rights among
the civilian population, he argued,
should not be an impediment to
fighting terrorism in the three
north-eastern states of Adamawa,
Borno and Yobe.
He added, “Sometimes the criticism
of us (the United States) is that we
don’t care about fighting terrorism,
but we care about human rights. My
reaction is that I don’t believe that
you have to choose between
fighting terror and protecting the
civilian population. I think you can
do both at the same time.
“As you fight terror, you also have
to protect the civilian population
and keep them on your side. We
have learnt the hard way in our
own counter-terrorism experience
that if you lose the trust and
support of the civilian population,
you have lost everything. We
(Nigeria and America) have had that
conversation and indeed much of
the (military) training that we have
done with the army over the years
have focused on this kind of thing.”
by ROTMANLUV 2023-07-08, 17:34
