On April 14, over 200 pupils were abducted from Government Girls Secondary School Chibok in Borno State, sparking an international outrage. In response to the global outcry, the US sent spy planes to Nigeria to help locate the girls and a plan was agreed with the military to mount a daring rescue operation.
However, according to two US Army generals, details of the rescue mission was leaked to Boko Haram before it could be put into operation, enabling the terrorists to take preventative action. Accusing the Nigerian Army of treason, the generals revealed that that the war against Boko Haram was purposefully sabotaged by the Nigerian government, as if it would not, defeating the terrorists would not have taken longer than a month.
US sources pulled out from helping Nigeria rescue the missing Chibok girls after Washington discovered that Boko Haram had been fed the details of a covert rescue mission that would involve using gas. Source said that as soon as the Americans arrived and flew surveillance flights over Nigeria, they located the girls and proposed gassing the areas in the Sambisa Forest and then sending in a raid mission to rescue the girls while their terrorist captors were paralysed asleep.
However, shortly after Nigeria’s security chiefs were given this plan in high confidence, its details were leaked to Boko Haram who promptly acted to foil the plot. On its next surveillance flight over the area, the US team saw the Boko Haram terrorists all wearing gas masks.
US agents were very disappointed with this and immediately afterwards, Washington announced that it will no longer share information with Nigeria. This was one of the major reasons why the US gave up on a mission of working with the Jonathan government and eventually pulled out of the fight against Boko Haram.
According to military sources, it was this betrayal that led to Washington sanctioning Nigeria and preventing her from purchasing security equipment because the US is not convinced of the sincerity of the Jonathan government. Since the episode, the US has refused to sell Nigeria military hardware amid fears that it may end up in the hands of Boko Haram, although the official reason given was the human rights record of the Nigerian Army.
Since it began its operations in 2009, Boko Haram has always managed to infiltrate the Nigerian security forces where it has as lot of supporters and sympathisers. Terrorist cells are regularly tipped off about military missions and have subsequently been able to lie in ambush for Nigerian soldiers.
Of late, however, Boko Haram has been on the back foot since the establishment of the regional Multi National Joint Task Force. Because the task force is made up of regional neighbours Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic, Boko Haram has been unable to infiltrate it, ass their troops have not been compromised.
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