Pakistan on Wednesday offered to share military assistance, including ”nuclear power” with Nigeria, in defiance of President George Bush’s new counter-proliferation initiative.
The offer was announced by the Nigerian defence ministry in a statement saying that General Muhammad Aziz Khan, chairman of Pakistan’s joint chiefs of staff, had made the offer to the Nigerian defence minister, Rabiu Kwankwaso, during a visit to the west African state’s capital, Abuja.
”Speaking at the opening of the discussions, the Pakistani chairman of joint chiefs of staff … said that his country is working out the dynamics of how they can assist Nigeria’s armed forces to strengthen its military capability and to acquire nuclear power,” the Nigerian press release said. Neither the Pakistani nor the Nigerian governments clarified what General Khan had in mind.
The announcement is likely to provoke consternation in Washington, coming just a month after the mastermind behind Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted publicly that he had run a black market in nuclear weapons materials.
Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, expressed shock at the confession, but pardoned Khan, much to the anger of nuclear inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
A detailed report in the New Yorker this week suggested Washington had turned a blind eye to the Pakistani government’s connivance in sales of nuclear materials and technology to countries like Iran and Libya, in exchange for permission to send American commandos to hunt down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s Hindu Kush.
A week after Khan’s confession, President Bush launched a counter-proliferation initiative based on international cooperation to curb transfers of nuclear technology and materials. General Khan’s offer to Nigeria appeared to be in blatant defiance of that initiative.
The general made clear that the snub was intentional, declaring: ”Pakistan had to take its destiny into its own hands to become a nuclear state because of the regular threats posed by hostile neighbours with special reference to the Kashmir conflict,” according to the press release.
US officials are also baffled at Nigeria’s intentions, nearly five years after the country restored civilian rule, and at a time when it is under no threat from its neighbours.
Two months ago, the Nigerian vice president’s office announced that it had struck an agreement with North Korea to gain access to Pyongyang’s missile technology. The offer was subsequently denied by North Korean officials and played down by a spokesperson to Nigeria’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo.
The Nigerian government said at the time that ”nothing was written in stone” and that any North Korean missile help would be used for ”peacekeeping” and to protect its territory. It said it was not seeking nuclear technology or any other weapons of mass destruction.
The South Korean unification minister, Jeong Se-hyun, said it was not clear whether Nigeria had accepted the offer, but said he didn’t think the issue would cause many problems. ”I see it as a tactic by North Korea to arouse anxiousness from the United States ahead of the second round of six-nation talks,” Jeong said.
Nevertheless, the reports caused alarm in Washington.
”If the Nigerians go through with this purchase, they will have earned the unenviable distinction as the first sub-Saharan African state to introduce ballistic-missile technology to the region. They will become the initiator of a supremely wasteful and potentially deadly arms race,” said Richard Norton, a national security expert at the US naval war college.
”Nigeria’s motives would be questioned and its moves viewed with suspicion. And the Nigerian-US relationship would be damaged, perhaps badly. Substantial amounts of US military and law enforcement aid given to Nigeria might be placed in jeopardy.” – Guardian Unlimited Â