There are indications that Nigeria has brought in hundreds of mercenaries from Eastern Europe to strengthen its war against militant Islamic group, Boko Haram.
The Eastern European mercenaries have joined their South-African counterparts and Nigerian soldiers fighting the insurgents.
According to Reuters, rumours
about the use of foreign mercenaries against the Islamist militant
group gained substance this month when pictures surfaced on Twitter
showing Armoured Personnel Carriers vehicles on a street in Maiduguri,
Borno State.
In the picture, which appeared on
Twitter on March 6, a white man in a khaki, a tee-shirt and body
armour, was standing beside a heavy-calibre machine gun on top of one of
the sand-coloured APCs as the column drove through the streets at dusk.
The newswire stated that its reporter
with knowledge of Maiduguri was able to verify the location of the photo
as the Bama Road near the University of Maiduguri.
Security and diplomatic sources said the number of the mercenaries was much higher than the hundred or so previously reported.
When contacted by The PUNCH,
the spokesman for the Defence Headquarters, Brig.-Gen. Chris Olukolade,
said “I don’t know anything about the claim”(the involvement of
mercenaries in the fight against Boko Haram).
He added, “I just know Nigerian
military and security forces are putting in all resources, training and
experience acquired over the years to address security challenges.
“Our neighbours operating under the
auspices of the Mutlinational Joint Task Force are also backing our
efforts from all our borders with them. We also have some offers of
training and intelligence from friendly countries.”
Attempts by The PUNCH to speak
with the Director-General, National Orientation Agency, Mike Omeri, who
coordinates the National Information Centre, on the issue proved
abortive as he did not pick calls to his mobile phone.
He was also yet to reply a text message on the use of mercenaries in the North-East as of press time.
President Goodluck Jonathan had on
Wednesday, said that two companies were providing “trainers and
technicians” to help Nigerian forces in their efforts to end insurgency
in the country.
He did not name the firms or the nationalities or give numbers.
It was gathered from a West African
security source and a South African defence source that the
mercenaries were linked to the bosses of a former South African private
military.
The company is known for its involvement
in Angola’s 1975-2002 civil war and against Revolutionary United Front
rebels in Sierra Leone in 1995.
It disbanded in 1998, under pressure from the post-apartheid government in Pretoria to curtail mercenary activities.
Foreign fighters paid $400 cash daily
A West African security source said the foreign fighters were being paid around $400 a day.
A South African defence contractor
confirmed that South African company leaders were involved in the
deployment of the mercenaries.
An Abuja-based diplomat said the South
Africans were backed by soldiers and hardware from the Eastern Europe in
an alliance against Boko Haram .
“It’s an incoherent mix of people,
helicopters and random kit from all sorts of different sources, but
there is an element of internal cohesion from the Nigerian Army,” the
diplomat said.
“It appears to be a desperate ploy to
get some sort of tactical success up there in six weeks for the
electoral boost,” the diplomat added. The numbers of soldiers involved
were in the “low hundreds; he added.
Editor of African Armed Forces magazine,
John Stupart, identified the troop carriers as Reva III, manufactured
by a Pretoria-based company called Integrated Convoy Protection.
After reports of South African military
trainers first surfaced in the Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper in
January, Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapise-Nqakula, made clear her
displeasure, saying any deployment would be illegal under 1998
anti-mercenary laws.
“They are mercenaries, whether they are
training, skilling the Nigerian defence force, or scouting for them. The
point is they have no business to be there,” she was quoted as saying
in domestic media.
The minister added, “The police have a
responsibility to ensure that, when they come back, those people are
arrested and the [National Prosecutions Authority] has a responsibility
to charge them. There are consequences for going out of the country and
provide [sic] any form of military assistance as a mercenary, not as
part of the deployment by government.”
South Africa bans its nationals from
participating directly in hostilities for private gain. Georgia, seen as
a major source of mercenaries, has laws before parliament criminalising
participation in a broad range of foreign military activities.
The appearance of foreign private
soldiers comes four months after Nigeria’s ambassador to the United
States, Ade Adefyue, said Washington was not helping the struggle
against Boko Haram, and had failed to share intelligence and sell
Nigeria the weapons it needed.
South African dies
A South African mercenary has been killed in Borno State where he was participating in the fight against Boko Haram.
Leon Lotz, an apartheid-era Koevoet
operative, was reportedly killed on March 9 in a friendly fire incident
when a Nigerian tank destroyed the wrong target, according to Daily Maverick newspaper.
Lotz is reportedly from KwaZulu-Natal and was involved in the support and maintenance of vehicles used by the Nigerian Army.
According to a Daily Maverick source, Lotz was working for a private security company called Pilgrim Africa Ltd.
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