The countries that are fighting the Boko Haram and which are Nigeria's neighbour Chad, Niger and Cameroon--are French speaking countries and have close relations with France. Cameroon was, however, not part of the deal.
The American support, contained in a press statement issued by the White House, is to provide assistance to France which has been actively supporting Nigeria's French speaking neighbours as well as Mali, which is battling Islamist extremism.
However, America’s new support did not mention Nigeria, the country worst hit by Boko Haram’s terrorist assaults. The omission of Nigeria has raised questions in diplomatic circles whether the apparent snub represented a continuing fallout from strained relations between the Goodluck Jonathan administration and President Barack Obama over the former’s original questionable response to the Boko Haram menace.
Last week, at Time magazine’s 100 influential people gala in New York City, top US government officials, including Samantha Powers, promised that the US would do more to support the search for the Chibok girls and the fight against Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Entitled: “Delegation of Authority Under Section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,” the White House statement noted that President Obama had authorised Secretary of State, John Kerry, to facilitate the US assistance to Mali, Niger and Chad, significantly omitting Nigeria.
In the White House statement, Mr. Obama declared, “I hereby delegate to the Secretary of State the authority under section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to direct the drawdown of up to $35 million in defence services of the Department of Defence to provide assistance to France in its efforts to secure Mali, Niger, and Chad from terrorists and violent extremists, and to make the determinations required under such section to direct such a drawdown.”
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