The $346 million arms deal between the United States and Nigeria has made rights groups nervous due to continued violence carried out by the security forces of West African nations against civilians. Rights groups accuse Abuja of carrying out widespread violence against civilians with impunity.
Earlier last week the US State Department approved a possible sale of $346 million in weapons, including bombs, rockets and munitions, to Nigeria. Nigerian forces are battling one of the worst resurgences in violent crimes committed by the armed "bandit" gangs in the northwest and separatists in the southeast.
Civilians are often caught up in crossfire between the Christian and Muslim militias who are fighting for control over resource-rich areas. The same week the arms deal was approved, a human rights report on Nigeria said that its security forces had conducted widespread air attacks on civilians.
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The sale announcement was 'conspicuously silent on the Nigerian military's record of serious human rights abuses and on what safeguards, if any, will be implemented,' Anietie Ewang, Nigeria researcher for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Though the Nigerian military has denied the claims and said that in the Zamfara bombing, the air force struck "terrorists".
Meanwhile, a SIPRI report recently revealed that the US is not the Primary weapons supplier to Nigeria; rather, China and Russia are. In the past five years, that landscape has shifted, with China, Turkey, Brazil, Pakistan and the Netherlands making up the top suppliers, according to SIPRI's database of publicly available "major conventional arms" transfers.
Also Read: 50 killed, dozens kidnapped by gunmen in Nigeria
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