Senator Ali Ndume, representing Borno South, has welcomed the United States’ military support in Nigeria’s fight against insurgency, describing it as a timely and necessary boost to the country’s counterterrorism efforts.
Ndume spoke on Friday during an appearance on Channels Television’s flagship current affairs programme, Politics Today.
“The fact that the Americans are now helping us fight insurgency is a welcome development. We have been looking for this support for a long time and have made many efforts to get it, but have failed,” the former Senate chief whip said.
He stressed the urgency of utilizing the support, noting that resource limitations have been a major setback in the fight against insurgency. “Now that we have this window of opportunity, we must utilize it. America has agreed to provide those resources free of charge,” Ndume added.
Last week, General Dagvin Anderson, head of the United States Africa Command (Africom), highlighted growing collaboration between the two countries in defence and security.
“We agreed that we needed to work together on the way forward in the region,” Anderson said at a virtual news conference. “That has led to increased collaboration between our nations to include a small US team that brings some unique capabilities from the United States in order to augment what Nigeria has been doing for several years.”
