WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, chaired a hearing Thursday to review the United States’ response to the April 15 abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria. The hearing, held one month to the day of the abductions, examined U.S. offers of assistance and impediments that have slowed the deployment of that assistance. The hearing also took a broader look at Nigeria’s response to the abductions and root causes of Boko Haram’s years-long terror campaign, as well as the regional implications of this growing threat.

“Every day that these girls are missing, it becomes less likely that they will be returned home safely,” Senator Coons said. “It took too long for the Nigerian government to respond to the girls’ abduction. It took too long for the Nigerian government to accept offers of assistance from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and China, and once accepted, it took too long for that assistance to be fully implemented. I’m glad a U.S. team is on the ground now, and we need to make sure that not another day is wasted. We cannot stand by while Boko Haram viciously attacks Nigerian citizens, their freedom, their security, and their right to an education.”

U.S. Administration officials testifying before the Subcommittee Thursday included Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Ambassador Robert Jackson, USAID Assistant Administrator for African Affairs Earl Gast, and Department of Defense Principal Director for African Affairs Alice Friend. Lantana Abdullahi, a project manager at the international non-profit Search for Common Ground, testified via Google Hangout from Jos, Nigeria.

Senator Coons pressed each of the officials on exactly how long it took U.S. government agencies to offer assistance to the Nigerian government, the types of support offered, and any barriers they have faced in terms of implementation. Ambassador Jackson testified that Secretary Kerry first called Nigeria’s president roughly two weeks ago to offer assistance, and that the U.S. government deployed an 18-member interagency team on May 12 to provide the Nigerian government with military and law enforcement assistance, as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support. 

“We have provided commercial imagery and are flying manned and unmanned ISR aircraft over Nigeria to support the search,” Jackson said. “We are working closely with international partners on the ground, including the UK and France, and we are pressing for additional multilateral action, including UN Security Council sanctions on Boko Haram.”

“Resolving this crisis is now one of the highest priorities of the U.S. Government,” Jackson said.

Principal Director Friend testified that the Nigerian government accepted U.S. assistance on May 4th and that the Department of Defense had ISR overflight by May 9th. She also spoke to the work DoD is doing to provide training assistance to Nigerian security forces, and the challenges the agency has faced to adequately vet military units so as to ensure aid is not provided to officers or units implicated in human rights abuses, as restricted by existing U.S. law.

Commenting on the poor human rights record of the Nigerian security services, Friend said “It is… a persistent and very troubling limitation on our ability to provide assistance, particularly training assistance, that the Nigerians so badly need.” 

Given Boko Haram’s targeting of schools in northern Nigeria, Senator Coons also raised concerns about levels of U.S. support for international education programs, particularly for women and girls, in developing countries and conflict areas like northern Nigeria. Gast said that while USAID is devoting at least 10 percent of its total education budget for Africa to programs in Nigeria, access issues have made it extremely difficult to program resources in the North.

“We are working with DFID, the British development agency, and we believe we're very close to announcing a major effort to support education, primarily girls' education, secure education in the North,” Gast said.

Testifying from Nigeria, Lantana Abdullahi addressed the Nigerian government’s slow response to the crisis and its hesitancy to accept offers of international aid, stating that the government’s eventual cooperation was a result of building pressure from both inside and outside the country.

“The government were very skeptical,” said Abdullahi. “They were very...slow in accepting those offers.  But I think Nigerians have actually pushed for that, and we've seen it, you know, happening now. And we hope that apart from just wanting to have the girls released, we also work beyond… the abduction to address… those root causes.”

The Subcommittee previously looked at the threat of Boko Haram to Nigeria’s stability and security in March 2012. More on that hearing is available here: http://1.usa.gov/1l7aSX2 and http://1.usa.gov/1gfZ40m