Nigeria's Peacekeeping Contribution Shrunk Over Lack Of Funds - Defense Minister

Nigeria's contribution to regional and international peacekeeping has dramatically reduced due to financial problems, Nigerian Defense Minister Mansur Dan-Ali told Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th April, 2019) Nigeria's contribution to regional and international peacekeeping has dramatically reduced due to financial problems, Nigerian Defense Minister Mansur Dan-Ali told Sputnik.

"Nigeria is a regional power. Within the concept of ECCAS [Economic Community of Central African States], we are in Gambia, in Mali, in Sudan, we have forces that contribute to international peacekeeping. Having our own problems now, our contribution to peacekeeping has drastically reduced. We used to be one of the major contributors to peacekeeping across the globe but now with the local security problem we have reduced our participation to mostly medical and some contingent equipment, not troops.

Like we said, we need more financing that is truly contingent on equipment that we are supplying," the minister said on the sidelines of the Conference on International Security in Moscow.

He remarked that additional funds would allow Nigeria to recruit.

"We have human power, we have manpower that we can train to go to peacekeeping. But this has to be planned. Not immediately. Financially we need more," the minister said.

The security conference will run through Thursday.