‘We didn’t hire mercenaries to fight terrorists’, FG says

monjola sotubo

March 16, 2015 2:20 PM

According to the Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mike Omeri, the government only hired foreign technicians to train troops on how to use recently acquired weapons.

The Nigerian government has denied reports that it had hired the services of mercenaries in the war against Boko Haram.

According to the Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mike Omeri, the government only hired foreign technicians to train troops on how to use recently acquired weapons.

“When our weapons were acquired recently, we needed training because training component came with the people who supplied these weapons,” he said. “It is therefore easy to see a white man where these things are happening like in Maiduguri and elsewhere and conclude that we have mercenaries,” Omeri told Premium Times.

“What we have are trainers who came from security companies to help us manage and learn how to use some of the much more modern weapons because there is no time; we are in a war situation and we need the capability to use the weapons immediately,” he added.

"If Nigeria wants to recruit mercenaries, there are legitimate ways of doing it and this government knows how to do it and it would have gone that way to do it and to inform citizens appropriately,” Omeri said.

Reuters had earlier reported that Nigeria had enlisted the help of foreign mercenaries who were being paid about $400 a day to fight the terrorists.

monjola sotubo