{"id":33845,"date":"2017-04-11T15:58:52","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T15:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/trump-administration-to-sell-nigeria-planes-for\/"},"modified":"2017-04-11T15:58:46","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T15:58:46","slug":"trump-administration-to-sell-nigeria-planes-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/trump-administration-to-sell-nigeria-planes-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration ‘to sell Nigeria planes’ for Boko Haram fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The Trump administration plans to sell military planes to Nigeria despite concerns over rights abuses and a botched air strike that killed scores of civilians in January, US media say.}<\/p>\n

Up to a dozen A-29 Super Tucano aircraft would be sold to Nigeria to help fight Islamist militant group Boko Haram, unnamed US officials said.<\/p>\n

The deal, which is not yet official, will require approval from Congress.<\/p>\n

Boko Haram’s deadly insurgency has displaced more than two million people.<\/p>\n

The deal, said to be worth up to $600m (\u00a3490m), was agreed by the Obama administration, but was reportedly halted on the day it was due to be sent to Congress, after a catastrophic incident involving the Nigerian military.<\/p>\n

About 90 people, mainly women and children, were killed in January when the Nigerian Air Force mistakenly bombed a camp in the country’s north-east, which was hosting thousands of those who had fled Boko Haram.<\/p>\n

An aid distribution was taking place at the time of the attack, according to medical charity MSF.<\/p>\n

The Nigerian government indicated last month that the deal might be back on, following the first phone call between President Muhammadu Buhari and President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

“President Trump assured the Nigerian president of US readiness to cut a new deal in helping Nigeria in terms of military weapons to combat terrorism,” Mr Buhari’s office said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The US congressional source said human rights concerns remain, despite support for the sale from some lawmakers, Reuters news agency reports.<\/p>\n

The US Air Force described the A-29 aircraft as a “game-changer” when they were deployed in Afghanistan in 2016.<\/p>\n

They can be armed with two wing-mounted machine guns and can carry up to 1,550 kg of weapons.<\/p>\n

But the aircraft that would be sold to Nigeria come with a “very basic armed configuration,” one of the unnamed US officials told Reuters.<\/p>\n

{{Boko Haram at a glance:
\n}}<\/p>\n

Founded in 2002, initially focused on opposing Western-style education – Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language<\/p>\n

Launched military operations in 2009<\/p>\n

Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria, hundreds abducted, including at least 200 schoolgirls<\/p>\n

Joined so-called Islamic State, now calls itself IS’s “West African province”<\/p>\n

Seized large area in north-east, where it declared caliphate<\/p>\n

Regional force has retaken most territory in the last two years.<\/p>\n

\"Super<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The Trump administration plans to sell military planes to Nigeria despite concerns over rights abuses and a botched air strike that killed scores of civilians in January, US media say.} Up to a dozen A-29 Super Tucano aircraft would be sold to Nigeria to help fight Islamist militant group Boko Haram, unnamed US officials said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33845"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33845"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}