EU plans €20m defence support for Nigeria, technical visit due in November

The European Union is planning €20 million in defence assistance for Nigeria, with a technical delegation expected in Abuja in November to settle the delivery arrangements.

The proposed package would be provided under the European Peace Facility. Delivery arrangements are still to be agreed.

The assistance was discussed at a meeting between Defence Minister Christopher Musa and the EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, at Ship House in Abuja.

Details were released in an October 17 statement signed by Leah Katung-Babatunde, the minister’s special assistant on media. Mignot also invited Musa to a meeting of defence ministers in Brussels later in the year.

Musa said Nigeria was expecting 10 attack helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and other military equipment. Those expected deliveries were mentioned separately from the proposed EU package.

The minister said military and other security operations were gradually restoring relative peace, while acknowledging that highway kidnappings and attacks on isolated communities remained a challenge.

The talks also covered regional security. Musa identified the shrinking Lake Chad Basin as a potential source of instability and said preventing terrorists from using holding areas on the lake’s islands remained a priority for the Multinational Joint Task Force.

On the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programme, he called for priority to be given to victims of the conflict, including affected military personnel.

Sources: Channels TV, Voice of Nigeria