Buhari’s G7 Visit Affirms U.S. Favoritism

The pattern of preference by U.S. policy toward newly elected Nigerian President Muhamadou Buhari is officially beyond coincidence.  For U.S. counter terrorism and economic policy toward Nigeria since 2009 to make sense you would have to accept the following contradictions:

• While over 10,000 black Africans lost their live to a group without religious goals the United States was impotent to conduct counter terrorism efforts against Boko Haram for six years because of human rights issues in the Nigerian military.  The human rights issues in the Nigerian military have magically been solved in the two weeks since Muhamadou Buhari took office.
• The Shale revolution caused the United States to cut off oil purchases from Nigeria in 2014 after an initial decline in 2011 while maintaining oil purchases from the other top U.S. suppliers.  This tanked the Nigerian economy during Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency.
• The U.S. couldn’t offer helicopter support over the past five years and was forced to prohibit Israeli helicopter sales to the Nigerian military.  Yet, in the last six weeks of his presidency, former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan successfully pushed Boko Haram’s territorial holding back with the help of South African private military contractors and a few helicopters.
• Democratically elected President Goodluck Jonathan was so difficult to work with it made the United States impotent against a group that one U.S. intelligence official said looks like ‘ISIL.’  Yet, a former military dictator, Buhari, who was accused of human rights abuses gets an invite to the G7 summit in Germany.

These are not coincidences.  U.S. policy undermined Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram while the group grew in strength.  The role of South African military contractors shows what could have been accomplished if the U.S. had genuinely treated Boko Haram as a counter terrorism issue. Boko Haram has been pushed back as an occupying military threat but will remain hard wired into the global jihad with stronger ties to IS and al Shabaab.  They will adapt as an insurgency and benefit from the global networks they joined unchecked by the U.S. for so many years.

Why not stop Boko Haram’s human rights abuses in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, or 2014?  It has to do with who was president during the rise of Boko Haram.  Or who wasn’t president, rather.  As Freefire blog has previously reported, questions of U.S. favoritism for Buhari have not been sufficiently asked or answered.  When the U.S. shows favoritism near election time, it subverts democracy in that nation.  In the case of the U.S. preference for Buhari over Goodluck Jonathan, counter terrorism efforts against Boko Haram where ultimately subverted as well.