America worried over poverty in Nigeria, says ambassador

•McCulley

The United States (U.S.) yesterday said it is concerned about poverty situation in the country.

Its ambassador in Nigeria, Terence McCulley, said in order to reverse the trend, U.S. would work with government to alleviate poverty.

 McCulley said the U.S. government, through its agencies, would support the energy sector, Niger Delta, education, agriculture and regional security. The ambassador, who spoke to reporters via the telephone, said a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed to that effect recently. 

McCauley said President Goodluck Jonathan’s economic agenda offered incredible opportunity for poverty alleviation, adding that the U.S. would help to build capacity of Nigerians to curb insurgency in the country. 

He condemned the August 26 bombing of last year and other bombings, which, he added, affected the country and international community.

He said the U.S. was concerned about the extreme ideology of the Boko Haram group, saying it would carry out educational programmes to ensure the development of the North. He identified Bauchi and Sokoto as states which require education and public health programmes. 

He said: “The U.S. government will improve children’s education and restore hope for their future.” 

He said the U.S.  plans to extend its outreach to Kano. He said the threat by Boko Haram might stop the US from opening its embassy in Kano.

He said: "We are committed to partnership with Nigeria and we have programmes with the Nigerian Police in various capacities. I think that there would continue to be challenges and Nigeria can count on partners like the United States to help build capacities to address these challenges."    

On the fight against corruption in Nigeria, he said: "We have a variety of programmes to build capacity of the EFCC. We saluted the nomination of Chairman Ibrahim Lamorde. For a year and half, we tried to raise nomination because we recognised that the EFCC had not been able to fulfill its mandate. 

"We have a variety of training programmes in place to build the capacity of EFCC workers. Chairman Lamorde is going to Washington in a week's time to have similar discussion with law enforcement and other agencies. At every opportunity, we talk about the need to address the problem of corruption. It is a dialogue we carry out at the highest level of this government and we recognize there is a problem. But I think we are deploying resources to assist the government of Nigeria to address this problem and it is part of our public diplomacy message."