US plans selling Nigeria 12 Super Tucano jets as part of fight against Boko Haram

WASHINGTON is stepping up plans to sell the Nigerian Air Force as many as 12 A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft as part of the continued efforts to back the military campaign against Boko Haram insurgents.

 

Since Boko Haram abducted over 200 pupils from Government Girls Secondary School Chibok in April 2014, the US government has stepped up assistance to the Nigerian government to defeat the terrorist. Although there are no US combat troops on the ground, Washington has sent in military advisers and is also supplying equipment and hardware.

 

Washington is dedicating more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment to the campaign against the Islamist militants and plans to provide additional training to Nigerian infantry forces. This latest possible sale of military hardware to Nigeria favoured within the US administration but is still subject to review by Congress, which remains suspicious of African militaries.

 

This growing US military support is a political victory for President Muhammadu Buhari, who took office last year pledging to crack down on the rampant corruption that has undermined the armed forces in Africa’s most populous country. Nigeria's previous government of Goodluck Jonathan had scorned the US for blocking arms sales partly because of human rights concerns and also criticised Washington for failing to share intelligence.

 

This souring relation hit a low at the end of 2014 when US military training of Nigerian forces was abruptly halted. That is changing under President Buhari, however, whose crackdown on corruption has led to a raft of charges against top national security officials in the previous government.

 

Congress has not yet been formally notified of the possible US approval of the sale of Embraer’s A29 Super Tucano turboprop aircraft to Nigeria. Highly versatile, the jets can be used for training, surveillance or attack and can be armed with two wing-mounted machine guns and can carry up to 1,550 Kg of weapons.

 

One production line for the Super Tucano is in Florida, where it is built by US firm Sierra Nevada Corp.  One US official said the aircraft that would be sold to Nigeria come with a very basic armed configuration.

 

US officials did not disclose the cost of the planes to be sold to Nigeria but a contract for 20 similar aircraft struck with  Afghanistan was valued at about $428m at the time it was announced in 2013. Peter Pham, the director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council think tank, said any sale of Super Tucano aircraft would demonstrate improving ties but cautioned that their ability to counter Boko Haram could be limited.

 

Mr Pham said: “When you are fighting a group that’s no longer holding towns and villages, that are no longer massing forces in a conventional way, the aircraft, attack aircraft, have a much more limited role in that kind of fight.”

 

Boko Haram has lost most of its territory and its fighters have since regrouped and intensified their attacks in the Lake Chad Basin, threatening regional security, despite the creation of a 9,000-strong African multinational force to counter it. The US military expects to train a second Nigerian infantry battalion once the current group completes its training later this year.