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Table of Contents

Tables of Country Data: FY 2022 Security Assistance Actual Spending, FY 2023 Request, and FY 2024 Request

are posted below.

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Posted on AllAfrica.Com on 14 October 2023

Collapse of US Counterterrorism Strategy in the Sahel

By Daniel Volman

For two months after the coup in Niger in August, 2023, the Biden administration refused to declare that a “coup” had taken place. They did this because using the word would activate US laws requiring the cut off of all security cooperation, development assistance, and economic support.

They also hoped that they could make a deal with the junta to keep1,100 US troops at two bases in Niger and continue running counterterrorism operations throughout the Sahel using drones. They finally concluded that it would not be possible to reach an agreement with the junta and on, 10 October 2023, the Biden administration declared that a coup had taken place.

It is highly almost certain that the junta will respond by ending US counterterrorism operations launched from its territory and will expel US troops, just as it has expelled French troops. At least this is what officers of the US Africa Command (Africom) think. According to General James Hecker, commander of US Air Forces in Europe and Africa, “the US is actively considering new host nations,” and “There are several locations I’ll say that we’re looking at, but nothing’s firmed up. We have talked to some countries about it.”

Africom operations in the Sahel depend on the use of sophisticated air bases in the immediate area for intelligence-gathering, surveillance, and support for Nigerian military operations. The US spent $110 million modernizing the Nigerian air base at Agadez (where all US military personnel have now been relocated) for these operations.

If the US is forced to end operations at the base it modernized at Agadez and to withdraw US troops from Niger, they may be able to relocate to another country. But it’s hard to see how the US can continue to pursue its counterterrorism strategy in the Sahel without a base in the immediate area.

During his visit to Kenya on 25 September 2023, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that Washington would “evaluate any future steps that would prioritize both our diplomatic and security goals” in the Sahel. The Biden administration now has to do more than just “evaluate” its military operations in the Sahel; it has to bring them to an end.

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Posted on AllAfrica.Com on 3 October 2023

U.S. Defense Secretary Austin’s Trip to Africa:

Can the U.S. Military Hold the Line in Africa?

By Daniel Volman

On 25 September 2023, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin addressed reporters in Nairobi, Kenya. He was in the country during his first official visit to Africa for meetings with African leaders, including Kenyan President William Ruto and Cabinet Secretary of Defense Aden Duale. Speaking about the ongoing crisis in Niger, he said “While we give diplomacy a chance, we will also evaluate any future steps that would prioritize both our diplomatic and security goals.” He declared that Washington had “not made any significant change to our force postures and . . . we really want to see a diplomatic solution, a peaceful end” to the ongoing crisis in Niger.

Earlier, during a meeting in Washington with President Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique on 22 September 2023, Secretary Austin noted that “across the continent, we’ve seen autocrats undermine free and fair elections and blocked [sic] peaceful transitions of power. When generals overturn the will of the people, and put their own ambitions above the rule of law, security suffers, and democracy dies.” He went on to say that “As a Biden administration strategy for sub-Saharan Africa notes, effective, legitimate, and accountable militaries and other security forces are essential to support open, democratic, and resilient societies and to counter destabilizing threats. Or to put it more bluntly, militaries exist to defend their people and not to defy them. And Africa needs militaries that serve their citizens and not the other way around.”

And on 27 September 2023, in remarks Austin made in Luanda, Angola, he observed that “other countries may see African countries as proxies or even pawns,” but the United States wants “to move forward together, through growing partnerships rooted in mutual cooperation and mutual respect.” Thus, “our outstanding U.S. Africa Command, led by General Michael Langley, provides a range of support to our partners in Africa, and that includes professional military education, capacity-building, counterterrorism, logistics and much, much more.”

But, he insisted, “we also take a broader view of security. You know, it’s always easier to stamp out an ember than it is to put out a blaze, so we’re doubling down on conflict prevention, especially through the U.S. strategy to prevent conflict and to promote stability. We’re working with seven African partners to find creative ways to prevent conflict before it starts and to invest in locally-led solutions to buttress lasting peace.” He declared that “the United States will never take your partnership for granted. The people of Africa deserve to chart their own sovereign paths. And so we aren’t asking African countries to choose any side other than their own.”

Secretary Austin’s trip to Djibouti, Kenya, and Angola followed the wake of the coup in Niger and the expulsion of French counter-insurgency troops. In the aftermath of the coup, American military personnel stationed in Niamey, the capital of Niger, were moved to Base 101, the base near Agadez modernized by the Americans at an estimated cost of $110 million to serve as a base for intelligence and surveillance operations using drones and to support counter-insurgency operations by Nigerian soldiers.

In addition to in the Sahel, the Biden administration faces serious and escalating crises elsewhere in Africa: The continuing security crisis in Nigeria; Sudan’s civil war; ethnic violence in the Ethiopian provinces of Tigray and Amhara; and the deteriorating security situation in Somalia.

The United States is not in retreat in Africa; Washington is committed to holding the line against violent extremist organizations and global rivals: Russia and China. The key role that Africa plays in America’s struggle to assert and maintain its global hegemony means that Washington will stay on the same course it has pursued for years. But the question remains: can the US military hold the line in Africa, and should it keep pursuing a strategy that relies on the use of military power and that has proven both futile and counterproductive for the United States.

The United States has been promising for years to treat African countries as partners, and has disavowed any desire to make them choose between the United States and its global rivals. And it insists that democratic government, the protection of human rights and international law, military respect for civilian rule, and a better life for the people are its goals in Africa. But Africans have heard this all before. The Biden administration has to do more than just “evaluate” its military operations in Africa; it has to bring them to an end.

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Tables of Country Data:

FY 2022 Security Assistance Actual Spending, FY 2023 Request, and FY 2024 Request are posted below.

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What's Coming Up On The Website In 2024?

An Upcoming Article On :

“Africa and the New Geopolitics of World Conflict”

The increasing military involvement of the US, France, China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and other new external actors in Africa.

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Posted on AllAfrica.Com on 3 April 2023

U.S. Military Commander Reveals African Secrets

By Daniel Volman

Four-star Marine General Michael Langley, the new commander of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom), revealed two astounding secrets about U.S. military operations in Africa on 16 March 2023, when he appeared at the Senate Armed Services Committee annual hearing on the Africom budget request.

In his testimony, Langley disclosed that Africom has established a forward headquarters in Africa (in addition to its main headquarters in Stuttgart, German). When asked if Africom might follow the example of Central Command (which has its main headquarters in Tampa, Florida, but which has established a forward headquarters in Qatar), he replied that “I can talk about that in closed session, because we do have something established to that contract.”

General Langley also publicly and directly contradicted the repeated assertions by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and many other American officials that Washington did not want to make African countries choose between the United States and its Sino-Russian rivals. Washington’s actual view, he explained, was that “they make choices, and they make the wrong choices in siding with—going with either PRC or Russia for especially lethal aid.”

As Langley explained, this means that Washington should make it easier and faster for African governments to get American military equipment. African governments “come and they ask and said, hey General Langley, we don’t want your boots on the ground, we want your equipment.” But the U.S. arms sales program, “it’s moving too slow, Senator, just moving too slow and they make the wrong decisions.”

So African governments will be judged by the company they keep—the United States or Russia and China—and will be treated accordingly. Making the “wrong choices” or the “wrong decisions” will have consequences.

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By Daniel Volman*

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On 9 March 2023, President Biden released his security assistance budget request for Africa for FY 2024, the first new budget request he has submitted since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The age of American supremacism (in which the United States led an international coalition of allies that sought to dictate global geopolitical relations in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War at the 1980s) has come to an end with a bang and a new age of multi-polar great power struggle to establish a new global geopolitical order has begun. The new security assistance budget request provides us with some clear indications of what place Africa holds in the Biden administration’s vision of a new world order.

U.S. security interests in Africa have evolved significantly since the Bush administration created Africom (the military command with responsibility for managing U.S. military operations and programs in Africa) in 2008. From the beginning, however, the new command was focused on three missions: protecting U.S. access to African strategic raw materials (particularly oil and rare earth metals) and African military facilities, countering Chinese and Russian economic expansion and military presence on the continent, and backing counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations by its African allies.

Although Theresa Whelan, the Deputy Director of Defense for African Affairs (who directed the creation of Africom) tried to deceive the U.S. Congress about the purpose of the new command, the truth was revealed by officers of the U.S. Logistics Command, who quoted a briefing that she gave to a European Command conference in 2004 in which she stated quite clearly that Africom’s mission was to “prevent establishment of/disrupt/destroy terrorist groups, stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, perform evacuations of U.S. citizens in danger, assure access to strategic resources, lines of communication and refueling/forward sites” for the deployment of American troops throughout the continent. And in a presentation by Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, the first deputy commander of Africom, at a Defense Department conference held at Fort McNair on 18 February 2008, he specifically cited “oil disruption,” “terrorism,” and the “growing influence” of China as the principal challenges to U.S. interests in Africa.

NEW AFRICOM COMMANDER TESTIFIES TO CONGRESS

While the relative ranking of these priorities has shifted over the years since then, they remain Africom’s core missions. In his March 2023 testimony before the Senate and House Armed Services Committee hearings on the budget request, the newly appointed commander of Africom, Marine General Michael Langley was questioned primarily about Chinese and Russian activities on the continent. “The aspirations of China is threefold,” Langley asserted, “one from a geopolitical—they’re trying to change the international norms and they’re using some African countries within the U.N. construct whether it be the General Assembly or the Security Council trying to affect votes to change those international norms and international system writ large.” Then, “there is a geopolitical operation and their aspiration for military bases on the continent of Africa.” And, “the last piece, Senator, is geo-economic—our future—our future economy is dependent upon a number of rare earth minerals, and also some are clean energy technologies depend upon the rare earth minerals. About 30 to 40 percent of those minerals are on the continent of Africa, that—that’s forward thinking by the PRC.”

Langley claimed that China is trying to get military bases on the west coast of Africa. “They do have other aspirations, and in closed session, Ranking Member, I know that I can be able to lay that out, where in West Africa is their next military base aspiration.” If they do establish a base, “it would change the whole calculus of the geostrategic global campaign plans of protecting the homeland. It would shorten their, if they—they build any capacity on the West Coast, geostrategically it would put them at an advantage.” He went on to declare that “we can’t let them have a base on the West Cost because it would change the dynamics.”

And when asked if he thought it was “vital that we keep China from taking over that—that port [Capetown] there in South Africa?”, Langley replied “Absolutely so—sir, because as we look at the Cape of Good Hope and look at how much transit that our commerce goes across, and it’s also—it can also be a power projection point as well, so we can ill afford, from a geostrategic position allow either the PRC or even Russia to use that as a platform.”

General Langley also publicly and directly contradicted the repeated assertions by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and many other American officials that Washington did not want to make African countries choose between the United States and its Sino-Russian rivals. As he put it, “they make choices, and they make the wrong choices in siding with—going with either PRC or Russia for especially lethal aid.”

According Langley, this means that Washington should make it easier and quicker for African governments to get American military equipment. African governments “come and they ask and said, hey General Langley, we don’t want your boots on the ground, we want your equipment.” But the U.S. arms sales program, “it’s moving too slow, Senator, just moving too slow and they make the wrong decisions.”

And finally, Langley revealed that Africom has established a forward headquarters in Africa (in addition to its main headquarters in Stuttgart, German). When asked if Africom might follow the example of Central Command (which has its main headquarters in Tampa, Florida, but which has established a forward headquarters in Qatar), he replied that “I can talk about that in closed session, because we do have something established to that contract.”

BIDEN’S FY 2024 BUDGET PLAN FOR AFRICA

Now that the Biden administration has released its FY 2024 security assistance budget request for Africa, what does it tell us about the administration’s intentions and objectives?

International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Program (INCLE)

INCLE funding for Africa will remain almost unchanged at 59.1 million for Regional programs in East Africa, West Africa, and the Sahel as well as bilateral programs in Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, and other countries. Africa also likely to receive substantial funding through the Countering People’s Republic of China Malign Influence Fund ($70.0 million), the Prevention and Stabilization Fund ($15.5 million), and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons ($66.0 million).

Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs (NADR)

The Biden administration proposes a modest increase in NADR funding for Africa from through a variety of programs. The most important is the Antiterrorism Assistance program, which will increase to $274 million for Bureau of Counterterrorism (CTF) programs throughout the world, including programs in Kenya, Somalia, Tunisia, and other African countries. In addition, African countries are likely to a significant proportion of the $55.0 million requested for the Terrorist Interdiction Program/Personal Identification, Secure Comparison, and Evaluation System (TIP/PISCES), as well as some of the $237.1 million requested for the Conventional Weapons Destruction program (CWD) to secure and combat the illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons, including Man Portable Air Defense Systems in the Sahel-Maghrib region and “countering the PRC’s malign influence in Africa and Asia through high-visibility, high-impact demining efforts.”

Peacekeeping Operations (PKO)

The Biden administration intends to maintain funding for Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) at nearly its current level. The administration is requesting $260.0 for regional and bilateral programs to enhance the ability of African partners to conduct counterterrorism operations in East Africa (specifically in Somalia and South Sudan), sustain counterterrorism operations in East Africa and West Africa, conduct maritime security operations, and strengthen land and maritime borders. It is also asking for $33.4 million for the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership in the Maghrib and “across the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin countries (including potentially the littoral West African countries of Ghana, Benin, and Togo).”

It is also requesting $52.5 million in regional PKO funds to pay for a variety of programs, including the African Maritime Security Initiative, African Regional Counterterrorism program, the Countering Strategic Competitors program, and the Partnership for Regional East African Counterterrorism.

In addition, African countries are likely to receive some of the funding requested for the Prevention and Stabilization Fund ($5.0 million) “to bolster the capacity of partner governments to conduct counter-terrorism operations,” the Global Peace Operations Initiative ($71.0 million) “by reinforcing partner country capacity to generate, train, deploy, and sustain peacekeepers,” the Global Defense Reform Program ($18.0 million) “to enhance the ability of these countries to provide for their own defense in an effective, transparent, and accountable way.”

International Military Education and Training Program (IMET)

The Biden administration plans to boost spending on for the International Military Education and Training (IMET) programs for African countries (under which African military officers receive professional military training at home and at military facilities in the United States) to $38.6 million. Major recipients include Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa. The request specifically identifies Djibouti, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal as “priority recipients.”

Foreign Military Financing Program (FMF)

The budget request for FMF funding (through which the United States provides loans and grants to African governments for the purchases of U.S.-made military equipment) includes another $6 million for Djibouti in FY 2024 “to help bolster the bilateral relationship with Djibouti and counter malign [Chinese] influences in the region—a top U.S. national security priority.”

The request also calls for another $10 million in FMF for Morocco and $45 million for Tunisia. The Biden administration says the Tunisian armed forces “remain on the front lines of the fight against ISIS and other terrorist groups and the instability emanating from Libya, and serve as an important apolitical institution in Tunisian society.” This appears to be an attempt to demonstrate America’s concern about the deterioration of democratic institutions in that country.

In addition, African countries will receive some of the $50.0 million in FMF funding that is being requested for the Countering People’s Republic of China Fund. The money will be used “as seed money to incentivize partners to commit national funds to modernizing their militaries and divesting from PRC provided equipment.” This is intended to “reduce opportunities for the PRC to coerce and exert influence over [U.S.] partners.” And the budget includes $113.0 million to fund a new global FMF line called “Emerging Global Priorities” to “address emergent foreign policy priorities in the age of heightened strategic competition” with China and Russia. It will be used, in part, “to support regional stability in Africa and NATO’s southern flank, especially if Tunisia shows signs of a return to democratic governance.”

Foreign Military Sales Program (FMS)

The delivery of 12 A-29 Super Tucano counterinsurgency aircraft to Nigeria through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program was completed in July and October 2021, not long after the inauguration of President Biden. The sale to the Nigerian Air Force (which cost Nigeria $593 million), completed an arms deal initiated by the Obama administration and continued by the Trump administration. The planes are armed with twin machine guns, and can carry up to 1,550 kilograms of additional weaponry, including air-to-air missiles, bombs, rocket pods, and gun pods. And on April 14, 2022, the State Department announced that the Biden administration will proceed with the sale of twelve Bell Helicopter AH-1Z helicopter gunships to Nigeria, armed with 20mm machine guns and guided missiles. The deal (worth $997 million) was initiated by the Trump administration in January 2021, before the inauguration of President Biden.

U.S. Congress Questions Biden’s Policy

In December 2022, Reuters published two reports on its investigation of major human rights violations by the Nigerian military. In the first, it reported that Nigerian security forces have murdered thousands of children captured during military operations against jihadi insurgents. Babies, infants, and young children were executed because they were believed to be child soldiers or the children of insurgents. In the second, it reported that since at least 2013, the Nigerian military had conducted a secret, systematic, and illegal abortion program that ended at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls. Many of them had been kidnapped and raped by jihadi insurgents.

In reaction, US Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking Republican member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to request a review of US security assistance to Nigeria. Risch also called for the State Department to examine the potential use of American sanctions against Nigeria for its violence against women and children. “I look forward to hearing more about the Department’s planned response to the serious and abhorrent allegations levied against a long-standing beneficiary of U.S. security assistance and cooperation which, if deemed credible, have done irreparable harms to a generation of Nigerian citizens and to US credibility in the region,” Risch said in his letter to Blinken.

In February 2023, two members of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representatives Sara Jacobs (D-California) and Chris Smith (R-New Jersey), sent a letter to President Biden calling upon him to cancel the sale and review US security assistance and cooperation programs in Nigeria. As they pointed out, “the assistance we have provided has done little to stem the conflict—in fact, insecurity has worsened from the abuses committed by Nigerian forces.”

Therefore, they concluded, “we believe continuing to move forward with the nearly $1 billion arms sale would be highly inappropriate and we urge the Administration to rescind it. Given the recent reporting of Nigeria’s previously unknown mass forced abortion program—which allegedly ended at least 10,000 pregnancies—and the targeting of potentially thousands of children, we also urge a review of security assistance and cooperation programs in Nigeria.”

AND EVEN MORE GUNS!

On 27 March 2024, U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris announced that even more American weapons would be sent to Africa. She traveled to Accra, Ghana, and held a joint news conference with Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo. She revealed that the Biden administration would give $100 million worth of new military support over the next ten years to Ghana, Benin, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, and Togo, in addition to the aid in its budget request for these countries. The bulk of the money—at least 86 million—will be delivered over the next three years, according to the Biden administration, and doesn’t require congressional approval.

Although it is impossible to calculate a precise figure, it is clear that security assistance programs administered by the State Department will spend approximately $600 million on programs in Africa in FY 2024 under the administration’s budget proposal. At the same time, the Defense Department budget request includes approximately $750 in spending on Africom, including the costs to operate the U.S. military base established in Djibouti, conduct Drug Interdiction and Counter-Drug operations, and provide equipment and training to African military and internal security forces. The Defense Department also spends large amounts of money each year to dispatch ships to make calls at African ports, to conduct annual training exercises like the annual “Flintlock” exercises in West Africa and the annual “African Lion” exercises in North Africa and the Sahel, to send teams of Special Forces instructors to conduct training in African countries, to conduct drone attack and surveillance operations, and to send excess/surplus defense equipment to African recipients. But it is only possible to provide a rough estimate of these expenditures. Taken altogether, the United States government spends at least $1.5 billion on African security programs ever year, and probably as much as $2 billion.

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FY 2022 Security Assistance Actual

Spending, FY 2023 Request, and

FY 2024 Request

($ in thousands)

Security Assistance FY 2022 FY 2023 FY 2024

Program Actual Request Request

INCLE

Africa Total 71,300 50,800 51,900

Central African

Republic 4,500 3,250 3,250

Democratic Republic

of Congo 6,000 3,000 3,000

Ethiopia 1,50 1,000 1,000

Ghana 3,000 3,000 3.000

Kenya 4,450 3,000 3.000

Liberia 5,570 4,350 4,350

Morocco 3,600 2,500 2,500

Nigeria 6,400 3,200 4,300

Somalia 3,000 1,000 1,000

Sudan 500 - -

Tunisia 6,000 12,000

Africa Regional 32,250 29,000 29,000

IMET

Africa Total 17,908 19,280 20,805

Algeria 1,354 1,000 1,300

Angola 478 500 600

Benin 254 500 600

Botswana 640 600 600

Burundi - - 200

Cabo Verde 196 400 400

Cameroon 596 600 600

Central African

Republic 141 150 200

Chad - 800 800

Comoros 197 300 300

Cote d’Ivoire 344 500 600

Democratic Republic

of Congo 245 400 400

Djibouti 858 895 895

Equatorial Guinea 175 500 500

Eswatini 100 100 200

Gabon 232 400 500

Gambia 191 200 200

Ghana 835 800 900

Guinea-Bissau 71 100 200

Kenya 1,245 1,000 1,100

Lesotho 113 100 200

Liberia 420 360 360

Madagascar 396 300 300

Malawi 410 500 300

Mauretania 629 500 500

Mauritius 337 200 400

Morocco 1,112 600 2,000

Mozambique 818 600 600

Namibia 89 100 200

Niger 860 875 1,000

Nigeria 996 1,000 1,000

Republic of the Congo 421 200 200

Rwanda 420 550 550

Sao Tome and Principe 104 200 200

Senegal 957 850 900

Seychelles 362 200 200

Sierre Leone 775 400 400

Somalia 344 300 300

South Africa 395 650 650

Tanzania 804 750 750

Togo 305 500 600

Tunisia 1,488 2,000 2,300

Uganda 761 700 700

Zambia 363 500 500

NADR Antiterrorism

Assistance

Africa Total 40,500 39,500 39,500

Kenya 5,500 5,500 5,500

Somalia 4,000 4,000 4,000

Tunisia 5,000 1,000 2,000

Africa Regional 31,000 30,000 30,000

PKO

Africa Total 266,809 303,659 260,558

Central African

Republic 550 - -

Democratic Republic

of Congo 4,000 - -

Somalia 208,108 233,209 208,108

Africa Regional 54,151 52,450 52,450

Tran-Saharan

Counter-Terrorism

Partnership 38,500 33,400 33,400

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Posted on AllAfrica.Com on12 March 2023

Nigeria: Biden Faces Nigeria Crisis

By Daniel Volman

Washington, DC — President Biden faces three simultaneous crises in his policy toward Nigeria in the aftermath of the elections on Saturday, 25 February, when 24 million Nigerians voted in national elections. Now, following the election of Bola Tinubu as president, they are all coming to a head.

President Biden faces three simultaneous crises in his policy toward Nigeria in the aftermath of the elections on Saturday, 25 February, when 24 million Nigerians voted in national elections. Now, following the election of Bola Tinubu as president, they are all coming to a head.

First, Washington’s efforts over the past twelve years to get the Buhari government to end or reduce official corruption in Nigeria, to end or reduce state violence against civilians (especially women and children) and non-violent demonstrators, to contain or defeat jihadi insurgencies, and to reform the economy have completely failed.

The government is still completely corrupt. The military and other internal security forces have killed peaceful demonstrators, forced women to have abortions, and murdered children with impunity. Jihadi insurgents in northern Nigeria have suffered serious casualties, but the conflict continues unabated. The economy is in shambles as oil prices (the source of almost all government revenue) continue to fluctuate and oil production levels continue to fall, a chaotic currency exchange, and the previous government of President Buhari chose not to invest oil revenues in the development of the economy. Nothing that the Biden administration has done has made any difference.

Second, the government’s conduct of the election on 25 February, the violence that occurred during the polling, and the associated currency crisis, have only made the situation worse.

Third, members of Congress are stepping up their efforts to block future US arms deliveries to Nigeria.

Over the past six years, US has sold more than $1.6 billion worth of weaponry and other military equipment to Nigeria ($593 million for 12 A-29 Super Tucano counter-insurgency aircraft and $1 billion for 12 AH-1Z Cobra helicopter gunships). In 2015, the Obama administration agreed to sell 12 A-29 Super Tucano counter-insurgency aircraft) to Nigeria. Congress was officially notified of the deal by the Trump administration in 2017 and the warplanes were delivered by the Biden administration in 2021.

“I would also like to thank you again through—thank the Government of the U.S. for the cooperation on security, which has been very important to us,’ Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo told U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja on 18 November 2021, during Blinken’s visit to Nigeria. “The Super Tucanos have been delivered, and of course,” he added, “we’re looking forward to the [attack] helicopters as well.”

As Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffry Onyeama put it, the Biden administration has been “supportive in the security area, provided a Super Tucano aircraft.” And while “we have a slight issue with some attack helicopters,” he declared, “that’s more on the legislative side and not on the executive side.”

In his response, Secretary Blinken made no mention of US arms sales to Nigeria. However, Blinken did assert that the United States did “very much appreciate as well the security cooperation that we’re developing and making sure that we do it in a comprehensive way that puts our concerns about people first and foremost in what we’re doing.”

But events in Nigeria have provoked increasing resistance from US legislators to the sale of combat aircraft to Nigeria and have put the helicopter gunship deal in jeopardy. In 2017, US Senators Cory Brooker (D-New Jersey) and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urging that the sale of the A-29s be postponed until Nigeria demonstrated progress in investigating several incidents in which its security forces had killed hundreds of civilians. They stated that “we are concerned that the decision to proceed with this sale will empower the government of Nigeria to backtrack even further on its commitments to human rights, accountability, and upholding international humanitarian law, which in turn could spur greater unrest and violence, particularly in the northeastern part of the country.”

They went on to declare, “there is evidence that the Nigerian military routinely flouts the laws of war and there remains an absence of adequate safeguards and accountability mechanisms. This means that the Tucano aircraft could be used in a manner inconsistent with international human rights and humanitarian law—and that ultimately helps to strengthen Boko Haram.” Therefore, “we believe proceeding without any clear indication of progress from the Nigerian government on the protection of human rights and enforcement of accountability would run contrary to our national security objectives.” However, Congress took no action during the 30-day period legally mandated for it to review the sale. A State Department official then confirmed that the arms deal “has completed the congressional notification process, and we are currently working to finalize the proposed sale with the Nigerian government.”

The sale of 12 AH-1Z helicopter gunships has proven even more contentious, particularly since the Republican Party won control of the US House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections.

In July 2021, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee put a hold on the sale of helicopter gunships in response to the massacre of peaceful protesters at a demonstration against SAR in Lagos in October 2020. In April 2022, the Biden administration announced that it would ignore congressional concerns and approve the sale on the dubious grounds that “the proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a strategic partner in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

In December 2022, Reuters published two reports on its investigation of major human rights violations by the Nigerian military. In the first, it reported that Nigerian security forces have murdered thousands of children captured during military operations against jihadi insurgents. Babies, infants, and young children were executed because they were believed to be child soldiers or the children of insurgents. In the second, it reported that since at least 2013, the Nigerian military had conducted a secret, systematic, and illegal abortion program that ended at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls. Many of them had been kidnapped and raped by jihadi insurgents.

In reaction, US Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking Republican member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to request a review of US security assistance to Nigeria. Risch also called for the State Department to examine the potential use of American sanctions against Nigeria for its violence against women and children. “I look forward to hearing more about the Department’s planned response to the serious and abhorrent allegations levied against a long-standing beneficiary of US security assistance and cooperation which, if deemed credible, have done irreparable harms to a generation of Nigerian citizens and to US credibility in the region,” Risch said in his letter to Blinken.

In February 2023, two members of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representatives Sara Jacobs (D-California) and Chris Smith (R-New Jersey), sent a letter to President Biden calling upon him to cancel the sale and review US security assistance and cooperation programs in Nigeria. As they pointed out, “the assistance we have provided has done little to stem the conflict—in fact, insecurity has worsened from the abuses committed by Nigerian forces.”

Therefore, they concluded, “we believe continuing to move forward with the nearly $1 billion arms sale would be highly inappropriate and we urge the Administration to rescind it. Given the recent reporting of Nigeria’s previously unknown mass forced abortion program—which allegedly ended at least 10,000 pregnancies—and the targeting of potentially thousands of children, we also urge a review of security assistance and cooperation programs in Nigeria.”

A few days later, the Biden administration unveiled a revised set of rules for US global arms export, known as the Conventional Arms Transfer policy. Under the revised policy, arms sales will not be approved if the State Department concludes that the equipment “more likely than not” will be used to commit or facilitate genocide, crimes against humanity, breaches of the Geneva conventions, or serious violations of international law.” Nobody will take this policy seriously if the helicopter gunships are delivered.

The Biden administration’s dilemma is not balancing human rights and security considerations. US security assistance and America’s complicity in the Nigerian government’s human rights violations fuels the insurgencies and boosts public support for them. At the very least, the Biden administration should postpone the delivery of the helicopter gunships until it can provide Congress with tangible and conclusive evidence that the Nigerian government has reduced official corruption and human rights violations by its security forces.

The Biden administration has no choice except to develop a policy that actually strengthens democracy, promotes real economic development, reduces governmental corruption, and curbs human rights violations. Anything less will be a disaster for the United States and for Nigeria. The future of US-Africa relations is at stake. Will the Biden administration continue a policy of hypocrisy, deception, and militarization or will it carry out a real change in US policy?

Daniel Volman is the Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and a specialist on U.S. military policy toward Africa and African security issues.

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U.S. Military Commander Reveals African Secrets

By Daniel Volman

Four-star Marine General Michael Langley, the new commander of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom), revealed two astounding secrets about U.S. military operations in Africa on 16 March 2023, when he appeared at the Senate Armed Services Committee annual hearing on the Africom budget request.

In his testimony, Langley disclosed that Africom has established a forward headquarters in Africa (in addition to its main headquarters in Stuttgart, German). When asked if Africom might follow the example of Central Command (which has its main headquarters in Tampa, Florida, but which has established a forward headquarters in Qatar), he replied that “I can talk about that in closed session, because we do have something established to that contract.”

General Langley also publicly and directly contradicted the repeated assertions by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and many other American officials that Washington did not want to make African countries choose between the United States and its Sino-Russian rivals. Washington’s actual view, he explained, was that “they make choices, and they make the wrong choices in siding with—going with either PRC or Russia for especially lethal aid.”

As Langley explained, this means that Washington should make it easier and faster for African governments to get American military equipment. African governments “come and they ask and said, hey General Langley, we don’t want your boots on the ground, we want your equipment.” But the U.S. arms sales program, “it’s moving too slow, Senator, just moving too slow and they make the wrong decisions.”

So African governments will be judged by the company they keep—the United States or Russia and China—and will be treated accordingly. Making the “wrong choices” or the “wrong decisions” will have consequences.

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Posted on AllAfrica.Com on 13

Biden Faces Nigeria Crisis

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By Daniel Volman*

13 March 2023

*Daniel Volman is the Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and a specialist on U.S. military policy toward Africa and African security issues.