Leadership (Abuja)
Kunle Somorin
20 February 2008
Abuja — The United States has dropped the idea of siting the headquarters of its military high command in Africa, citing, among others, scathing criticism by the Nigerian government as reasons.
General William "kip" Ward had on Monday in London stated that the intent to have the command to bolster peace, security, stability and provide humanitarian support to the continent had been misunderstood by African, who ordinarily, should be beneficiaries of the American goodwill.
The US military said it decided to keep the headquarters of the new command, code-named, Africom, in Stuttgart, Germany since only one country that is historically linked to the US is the only country out of the continent's 53 countries that offered to host the command.
President Umar Musa Yar'Adua had in the heat of the campaign to lobby Nigeria to accept to host the command, summoned the National Council of State, the Council unequivocally rejected the proposition.
In November during a state visit to the United States, Yar'Adua had announced that not only was the country opposed to having the Africom based in Nigeria, he also said Nigeria was opposed to any such bases in West Africa.
South Africa and Libya have also lent their voices of dissent to US establishing military bases in Africa. Both countries regard the idea as militarization of Africa to ease access to the continent's enormous oil and energy reserves.
The Africom commander, however, denied such insinuations, saying there were no plans to create large US garrisons on the continent.
Gen. Ward said the military command was created to unite responsibilities shared by three other US regional commands.
He added that if Africa had been more receptive of the idea, the command would build the capacity of African countries for security and peacekeeping."
There has been concern that Africom is really an attempt to protect US oil and mineral interests in Africa, amid growing competition for resources from Asian economies, especially from the academia and the civil society.
Then there are fears about the continent being drawn into the US war on terror, our correspondent adds.
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