Eeben Barlow, chairman of
Specialised Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection International (STTEP), a
private army, has accused the US of influencing President Muhammadu Buhari to
terminate the contract to rescue Chibok girls.
Speaking in an interview with Al
Jazeera, Barlow said Buhari did not have any choice but to end the contract
because he came under pressure from the US – a country he said sponsored the
then All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate’s campaign in 2015.
Boko Haram insurgents abducted
276 girls from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state in 2014.
So far, 112 of the girls are still held captive by the insurgents. Fifty-seven
were lucky to escape while 107 were released in batches in Swiss-coordinated
negotiations.
In the build-up to the 2015
elections, the President Goodluck Jonathan administration made some successes
in combating Boko Haram but after the Buhari administration came on board, the
momentum went down temporarily.
Barlow said his army was
initially engaged to rescue the Chibok girls but that changed to combating Boko
Haram.
“Our initial aim was not Boko
Haram per se, it was to rescue the Chibok girls. They were the girls that were
kidnapped and the western response was #Savethegirls (#BringBackOurGirls),” he
said.
“That type of nonsense does not
save girls. Unfortunately, these girls became victims of a situation where the
security had broken down in a specific area, they were kidnapped and that was
the first mission – rescue the Chibok girls.
“We ended a selection process of
the Nigerian soldiers, the soldiers were retained after a selection process,
they were trained in a specific way to conduct a hostage rescue operation.
“However, after about five or six
weeks of the training of the hostage rescue team we were asked to change our
mission and that mission was to go to a town called Maiduguri in north-east
Nigeria that had come under severe threat of Boko Haram and we rapidly had to
transition what we were doing and suddenly train an offensive force with the
minimum of equipment.
“We rushed to Maiduguri and we
met with 7th infantry division commander, he was under pressure, we finally
understood the pressure he was under and our suggestion to him that the force
that we have trained which named the 72nd mobile strike force would actually
spearhead the division and that is precisely what we did.
“The operation was in three
phases, the first phase was to cut a dividing line across north-eastern Nigeria
and isolate Boko Haram into two isolated areas and mop up. One area in the
south was the start and after that then mop up in the north. The division will
follow behind and occupy terrain.
“But we were never allowed to
execute the entire operation. In one month, we took back terrain larger than
the terrain of Belgium from Boko Haram. We were not allowed to finish because
it came at a time that governments were in the process of changing.
“President Jonathan’s government
saw the entire Boko Haram contract, if we call it that, as a last grasp to
regain popularity. The incoming president, President Buhari was heavily
supported by a foreign government and one of the first missions was to
terminate our contract.
“We were told it was the United
States and they had actually funded President Buhari’s campaign and the
campaign manager for President Buhari came from the US.
“I’m not saying the United States
is bad, I understand foreign interests but I’d have thought that a threat like
Boko Haram on the integrity of Nigeria ought to be a priority but it wasn’t.”
When asked why the US allegedly
aborted the mission, he said: “I think the US can answer that, I have come to
realise that when a foreign interest clashes with a state’s interest and
domestic interest, conflict is bound to ensue and those conflicts continue with
no end.”
Barlow added that the federal
government would be in the right position to disclose how much they were paid
for the operation.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com