Recently, the U.S. government donated 24 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles valued at US$11 million to Nigeria as part of the Obama administration’s Excess Defense Articles Program. In a recent press release by the Public Affairs Section of the United States Diplomatic Mission to Nigeria, Defense Attaché Col. Patrick Doyle stated that “these vehicles provide increased protection from improvised explosive devices, roadside bombs, and small arms fire, while offering more maneuverability and better fuel economy than other types of armored personnel carriers.” In another report, Col. Doyle revealed that about half of the vehicles were inoperable while the other half needed to be fixed before they could be operated. In the Daily Post, Col. Doyle was further quoted as saying that,
“The repairs of the vehicle is up to the Nigerian government to do; they can repair them on their own if they have the facility to do that, but of course, the spare parts are very particular to this vehicle.” The MRAP was regarded as a God-sent solution to landmines laid against US military personnel in Afghanistan. Since MRAP is designed to resist the blast from land-mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), it appears to be the ideal weapon to fight Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Notably, at the end of the Afghan war MRAPs created a heavy financial burden for the U.S. military. Since MRAPs are not easy to retrofit, it was evident that it would cost a fortune to fix those that were broken. The Defense Department saw no need to bring these vehicles home, especially considering the fact that it would cost about US$50,000 to ship one vehicle. It made more sense for Pentagon to scrap broken MRAPs at an estimated cost of US$10,000 per vehicle. In 2014, the Online Defense and Acquisition Journal, DoD Buzz, disclosed that there was pressure on the U.S. military to sell or dispose of MRAPs that had been deployed in Afghanistan. According to Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, Commander of the coalition and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, the terms of selling or donation MRAPs are as follows: “If any friendly countries want to buy them, it’s an “as is, where is” deal.” Which means that the buyer or recipient would have to take the armored vehicles in the condition that they were sold or donated. The United States would not make any additional repairs. According to a June 19, 2013 Washington Post article, transportation and repair of MRAPs and other military equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan were estimated at the cost of US$12 billion. As Defense Department spokesman Mark E. Wright noted in a December 27, 2013 Los Angeles Times article, scrapping the equipment as excess military articles would save the U.S. about US$500 million.
The U.S. military is aware of the cost of disposing dilapidated military equipment. In their article published in The Nonproliferation Review/Winter 1996, Susanne Kopte, Michael Renner, and Peter Wilke discussed the difficulty of accurately estimating the cost of proper disposal of weapons and thus stated that “the full costs of meeting the surplus weapons dismantlement and disposal challenge can only be guessed” and “Management of wastes generated and decontamination of land and facilities are pressing, and very expensive tasks.” Hence, donating surplus MRAPs to allies is a huge cost savings for the U.S. government.
I cannot resist the urge to call out the Obama administration for playing double standards when it comes to issues affecting Sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria in particular. During the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan (which has been widely accused of corruption and human right abuse), the U.S. refused to support Nigeria’s efforts to dismantle Boko Haram on account of alleged poor human rights records of the federal government. Interestingly, regardless of President Obama’s definition of human rights abuse, the state of human rights in Nigeria during the Jonathan administration was by far less repugnant than what was obtaining in Egypt and Indonesia.
However, President Obama literally closed his eyes to the then-containable Boko Haram terrorism, thus conveying the impression that there was a total lack of concern at Washington for the massive destruction of human lives in northeastern Nigerian by Boko Haram. In 2014, President Jonathan made efforts to get enough firepower from Israel to contain Boko Haram, but President Obama blocked it. According to a news report by THISDAY, the U.S. government blocked the procurement of the “US-made Chinook helicopters from Israel, to facilitate the movement of troops and the injured.” The newspaper further alleged that the Obama administration refused to “provide Nigeria’s security agencies with timely intelligence needed to defeat Boko Haram.” Regardless of Obama’s rationale for delaying U.S. support to Nigeria’s fight against senseless massacre of innocent civilians by Boko Haram, I should point out that Nigerian lives matter!
Perhaps, Nigerians should be grateful that Obama has decided to come to Nigeria’s aid against Boko Haram apparently because he is no longer concerned about corruption and human rights abuse in Nigeria, thanks to the recently elected APC administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. However, it is appalling that the U.S. decided to donate dilapidated arms to Nigeria. Anyone familiar with environmental problems in Nigeria should wonder why the Obama Administration decided to treat Nigeria as a dumping ground for useless military waste. Obviously, proper disposal of unusable military equipment costs millions of dollars in the United States. Nigeria does not have the financial resources, specialized parts for MRAPs, or technical know-how to fix the armored vehicles donated by the United States.
With regard to the salvageable MRAPs, Nigeria will pay for the specialized parts and American technicians at expatriate rates that are typically five or more times their rate in the U.S. The ones that cannot be fixed need proper disposal, and Nigeria does not have properly built landfills for these types of military hardware. Why is the U.S. not providing funding to defray the cost of military waste disposal in Nigeria? Notably, the value of Nigerian foreign reserve has drastically decreased primarily due to the unprecedented short fall in crude oil prices and devaluation of the Naira. Moreover, much of Nigerian wealth has been catered away to Europe and the U.S. by corrupt Nigerian politicians.
Since Nigeria cannot afford the cost, the U.S. should pay for the disposal of the so-called excess military vehicles. Nigeria is better off getting a fewer number of weapons that work than having to fix weapons that have been discarded. It is not cost effective for Nigeria today to invest in equipment that will fail in battlefields. The stakes are too high. My point of contention is simple: If the Obama Administration chooses to dump military waste in Nigeria, it should pay for the waste disposal.
•Okemgbo, a Ph.D holder in Chemistry, Masters in Environmental Law and Policy, a Senior Research Scientist with AA Consulting, LLC, writes from US via aalajemba@gmail.com
Credits: Asopuru Okemgbo, Daily Sun; Photo credit: Linkedin