US President ready to sell fighter aircraft to Buhari

The Donald Trump administration has completed plans to sell Nigeria high-tech aircraft to combat the Boko Haram menace in the war ravaged northeast region of Nigeria.

According to the Associated Press, the US Congress is expected to receive formal notification from the executive within weeks, regarding the sale.

The arrangement will call for Nigeria to purchase up to 12 Embraer A-29 Super Tucano aircraft with sophisticated targeting gear for nearly $600 million, one unnamed official in the Trump presidency, told AP.

The U.S has been wary of selling weapons to Nigeria in the past, owing to fears over human rights violations.

According to the story, the Barack Obama administration pulled the plug on selling fighter aircraft to Nigeria the same day a fighter jet mistakenly bombed a camp for internally displaced persons in Rann, Borno State.

Over 200 civilians lost their lives in that January 17 bombing.

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But the US is soft-pedalling under Trump.

The US State Department said in a 2016 report that the Nigerian government has taken "few steps to investigate or prosecute officials who committed violations, whether in the security forces or elsewhere in the government, and impunity remained widespread at all levels of government."

The decision to sell high grade weaponry to Nigeria has enjoyed some backing within the highest levels of power in the U.S.

"It's hard to argue that any country in Africa is more important than Nigeria for the geopolitical and other strategic interests of the U.S.,"J. Peter Pham, vice president of the Atlantic Council in Washington and head of its Africa Center, said, according to AP.

Senator John McCain also threw his weight behind weapons sale to Nigeria.

"We've really got to try to do what we can to contain them," McCain said of Boko Haram.

During Trump's phone conversation with President Buhari in Febraury, he "assured the Nigerian president of U.S. readiness to cut a new deal in helping Nigeria in terms of military weapons to combat terrorism."