In 2012, as State Department officials take the Boko Haram Islamist group "very seriously" they delivered $20 Million U.S. dollars (or N3.176 billion) in military funding assistance to the Nigerians.
It was learned that the "very serious" focus has also involved 'back channel' discussions with Nigerian officials that have been 'stepped-up' since the car bomb attack at an Abuja bus station on April 15th 2014. In an exclusive memo sent by a State Department official who did so on the condition of anonymity, we learned several details of the talks and thinking inside the agency not widely reported.
James F. Entwistle, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, has spoken out against the Boko Haram-led abductions in Nigeria's northeast state of Borno, the ambassador also condemned a taxi park bombing that killed at least 19 persons on Thursday night at Nyanya near Abuja metropolis.
The statement released to reporters by the US state department today also disclosed that the State Department's Under Secretary, Wendy Sherman, has discussed the Boko Haram matter with the Nigerian Foreign Minister in a meeting on April 16.
State Department officials said that they "remain engaged" in discussions with the Government of Nigeria on what they might do to "help support their efforts" to find, and free, the high school girls abducted from a government boarding school 18 days ago in Chibok, Borno state. But beyond that, they told us, they were not going to get into the "details of our diplomacy" with the Nigerian Government.
In addition to the N3.176 billion already issued to Nigeria in 2012, department officials did offer several 'bullet points' in US government support for the fight against the Boko Haram menace. That assistance included: professionalizing Nigeria's military, investigating bomb sites, and enhancing forensics capacity.
State Department officials said that they have "urged the Nigerian government to take a comprehensive approach to addressing Boko Haram's violence - to professionalize its security forces, empower and develop local communities, and work with its neighbors to strengthen border security. The memo also categorically stated that the US government was assisting Nigeria. "We are helping them do this."
One example, the U.S. Embassy has supported workshops to build trust between youth, youth leaders, and law enforcement, an initiative seen as a "critical measure that can assist in helping to prevent incidents like these (in the future.")
Going beyond the quotes by Marie Harf, the State Department spokeswoman who spoke with Washington reporters on Thursday, is a broader look inside the department at both the politics on the ground inside Nigeria, and the layout of how the Islamic group operates in the northeast. "We have worked to develop a regional counter-terrorism capacity," said a State Department official, "through our Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP), which also includes Chad, Niger, and Cameroon."
But just what the TSCTP effort involves in overall regional strategy in the Boko Haram fight, the State Department will not say. It was learned that publicly, at least, leaders of the above named countries have been slow to announce an agreed upon plan in the fight with a group that plays a role in all four of their country's rural landscape. That lack of a concerted effort by the four nations, and especially the leadership out of Abuja, has angered and frustrated Nigeria's northern governors.
When Under Secretary Sarah Sewall visits Nigeria later this month, we were told, she will meet with high-level Nigerian officials to discuss ways to more effectively partner together to address these serious problems.
The second deadly car bombing on Thursday night in the capital is certain to prod those discussions with the Under Secretary. That attack, which killed 19 people and wounded 30, was later claimed to have been carried out by the extremist group Boko Haram.
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