Nigeria calls for U.S. Army's AFRICOM to move to Africa

April 28 (UPI) -- Nigeria's request to relocate the U.S. Africa Command from Germany to Africa comes amid new attacks by terrorist organizations in West Africa.

The command, responsible for U.S. military relations in Africa, is currently headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, but Nigerian President Muhammad Buhari asked for a change of location on Tuesday, he said, after a virtual meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

"In my call with US Secretary of State Blinken, I asked the US to consider re-locating the AFRICOM HQ from Germany to Africa--near the Theatre of Operation; against the backdrop of growing security challenges in West & Central Africa, Gulf of Guinea, Lake Chad region & the Sahel," Buhari wrote in a Twitter message on Tuesday.

The area he described has recently seen increased levels of attacks by groups linked to Boko Haram and the Islamic State, and many in Nigeria have urged Buhari to seek foreign help to fortify Nigerian security. Idriss Debey, the longtime president of Chad, died last week while visiting troops battling rebel groups at the Chad-Libya border.

However, Shehu Sani, a former Nigerian senator, called Buhari's suggestion "an open invitation for the recolonization of Africa," in a Twitter message on Wednesday, adding that "African countries should purposefully work together to confront & address their security challenges, while honorably seeking foreign technical assistance."

While it is unlikely that AFRICOM headquarters will move to Africa, its future is part of a Pentagon review of how U.S. forces are deployed worldwide. A plan devised under the administration of former president Donald Trump called for removal of AFRICOM, and thousands of other U.S. troops, from Germany.

Whether Stuttgart is the proper place for the command headquarters and its contingent of about 3,000 personnel has been an issue since AFRICOM was formed in 2007. Military bases in the United States have regularly been suggested by members of Congress hoping for an economic advantage for their constituencies.

A 2012 AFRICOM review concluded that keeping the headquarters in Stuttgart was the most economically feasible choice.