United States says it has
announced a $5 billion
contribution to the
Multinational Joint Task
Force to boost the military
operation against the Boko
Haram insurgency.

The U.S. Assistant Secretary,
Bureau of African Affairs,
Linda Thomas-Greenfield,
announced this at news
briefing via telephone from
the African Union Summit on
Monday.

“We have been working with
Nigeria as well as the African
countries to address their
concerns about Boko Haram
because we don’t see this as
just a Nigerian problem.

“We are having discussions
with President Buhari on how
we might bolster our support.
We have already been
working with them and
providing information.

“We are providing some
training and support and
we’ll love to work with the
new administration to see
how we might increase the
level of support to Nigeria.

“At the same time, we’ve just
announced at the venue of
the AU, five billion dollars
contribution to the
Multinational Task Force.

“We are also providing some
equipment and support and
we have a number of
meetings with the countries
who are members of the
Multinational Joint Task
Force to look at other areas
we might support.”

Mr. Thomas-Greenfield said
that Africa had faced “some
really horrendous terrorist
attacks” over the past two
years.

He listed the West Gate and
Garissa University attacks in
Kenya, and the Boko Haram
attacks particularly, the
kidnapping of the Chibok
girls among others.

“While I would not say Africa
is under siege, Africa has
some major security
challenges.

“That requires a very strong and very
concerted strategic effort by African
countries and partners to address the
security concerns of Africa.”

She said the U.S. is providing a strong
support to AU on security as the U.S. has
a strong partnership with the continent
on security.

“We are working closely with the Lake
Chad Basin countries: Nigeria, Chad,
Niger and Cameroon to address the
issues of Boko Haram,” she said.

She said that U.S. had so far trained
about 250,000 African peacekeepers,
saying U.S. highest priority in Africa
remained security.

The U.S. envoy expressed support to the
warrant of arrest issued by the
International Criminal Court against
Sudan President Omar Al-Bashir.

She said that the U.S. frowned at plans
by some African leaders to subvert the
constitution to extend their terms in
office, saying U.S. supports two-term
limit in office.

(NAN)