by Kolapo Olapoju

The training of a battalion of the Nigerian Army is to be discontinued by the United States government.

According to the US, the cancellation of the training, which is to provide untrained civilian personnel with basic soldiering skills, is at the request of Nigeria’s Federal Government.

The discontinuance of the training was communicated in a statement from the Information Office of the US Embassy in Abuja, on Monday, 1 December.

The United States stated that it regretted the premature termination of the exercise programme, however, adding that it would continue other aspects of the extensive bilateral security relationship and other assistance programmes.

The statement read: “At the request of the Nigerian government, the United States will discontinue its training of a Nigerian Army battalion. The first two phases of training were conducted between April and August 2014, and had provided previously untrained civilian personnel with basic soldiering skills.”

“Based on mutual assessment of the Nigerian Army and U.S. trainers, a third iteration of training was agreed upon with the intent of developing the battalion into a unit with advanced infantry skills.”

“We regret the premature termination of this training, as it was to be the first in a larger planned project that would have trained additional units with the goal of helping the Nigerian Army build capacity to counter Boko Haram.”

Meanwhile, a source from the Federal Government operations, is reported to have stated that at the moment, Nigeria has more pertinent issues to deal with and that the soldiers “don’t need any further training from the Americans.”

The source said, “Nigeria is facing a more pressing problems now; we need weapons to combat Boko Haram and not training. The Americans are supplying weapons and assisting Iraq to fight ISIS, but they are talking of training here. Is Nigeria not facing the same threat as Iraq that they are assisting? What we need are weapons and not training, our security personnel have all the training they required.”

The first two phases of the training exercise were conducted between April and August, 2014.