No signs Nigeria will disintegrate in 2015 – US

The United States Government has said there are no signs that
Nigeria will disintegrate before, during or after the February general
elections.

While explaining that Nigeria is facing “big challenges,” the US
Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. James Entwistle, stated that the problems at
stake were surmountable.

According to the American envoy, Nigerians should “throw out of the
window” the idea from “some think-tank or somebody outside the (US)
government” stating that Nigeria would fall apart in 2015.

Entwistle spoke in Lagos on Thursday during an interactive session
with journalists on the recent donation of a US naval ship, christened
NNS Okpabana, to the Nigerian Navy.

The US diplomat said, “I have been plagued by the question (on
Nigeria’s possible disintegration in 2015) and I have gone back to look
and I can’t find any government report that said Nigeria would
disintegrate in 2015. Maybe some think-tank or somebody outside the
government said it; I don’t know.

“But in my opinion as the US Ambassador to this country, I am not
worried in the least that Nigeria is going to disintegrate in 2015.
Regardless of what someone may have said, the question is that we are
now here in 2015: Do we see signs that Nigeria is going to disintegrate
or fall apart or something? I don’t know what you think. But I don’t see
those signs.

“But I see signs of growth, optimism and I see that to minimise the
challenges that you have, in this life, you have to keep on keeping on
and I think the future is quite bright.”

Entwistle added that if the Federal Government did what would need
to be done in the coming years, especially as pertaining to “security,
corruption and all of these things,” the future of Nigeria would be
“very bright.”

He debunked the insinuation that the President Barack Obama
administration has imposed “an arms embargo” on Nigeria following the
reported refusal of the American government to sell Cobra helicopters to
the Federal Government to prosecute the ongoing war against terrorism.

Citing human rights considerations for the development, Entwistle
hinted that the US Diplomatic Mission to Nigeria, was “still talking
about a number of other types of equipment and different types of
helicopters that might be more appropriate” for the Nigerian military
services.

Respecting human rights among the civilian population, he argued,
should not be an impediment to fighting terrorism in the three
north-eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.