Former President Bill Clinton, in a private fundraiser speech last year made public by Wikileaks earlier this week, told his wife’s donors that their family foundation has tried to “to save the lives of children” in Nigerian territory held by jihadist group Boko Haram.
His comments came after Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton reportedly refused to designate the jihadist group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) when she served as President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State.
Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to the the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
A probe by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) found the Clintons’ close relationship with Gilbert Chagoury, whose company pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2009, played a role in Secretary Clinton’s delay in deeming the Nigeria-based Boko Haram as a terrorist group.
The CGI is a non-profit organization launched by former President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation in 2005.
Transcripts of former President Clinton’s speech at a campaign fundraiser for his wife were made public after being emailed to current Hillary campaign chairman John Podesta as an attachment.
The speech reportedly took place behind closed doors, right outside of Washington, D.C. back in October 2015.
Bill Clinton told donors:
In Nigeria, for example, where Boko Haram is located, my foundation is working in the exact same areas trying to save the lives of (inaudible) children who die from diarrhea with a simple oral rehydration (inaudible) package that costs 50 cents to save the life of a child.
Although the Clinton Foundation appears to have provided aid for some in Nigeria, it is unclear if any of the boys and girls were from territory controlled by Boko Haram, which lies in the northeastern part of the country.
Citing the United Nations Children’s Fund, known as UNICEF, Newsweek reported in July that nearly 50,000 “children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition in [northeastern Nigeria’s] Borno state, the birthplace of the militant group… Of these, 49,000—around one in five children—will die if they do not receive treatment soon as the humanitarian response to the crisis wanes.”
In September, The Associated Press (AP) learned from intelligence agency Stratfor that Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria is “largely responsible” for a resurgence of polio, which affects children and causes severe paralysis.
The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a nonprofit launched by the Clinton Foundation in 2010, joined the governments of Nigeria and Norway as well as non-governmental organizations, business leaders, and civil society to launch the Saving One Million Lives (SOML) effort in 2012.
“Under this program, the [Nigerian] Ministry [of Health] has set a new goal of saving one million lives of women and children and improving the quality of care in Nigeria in 2013 by focusing on evidence-based interventions expected to have the greatest impact on lives saved,” noted the Clinton Foundation in an October 2012 press release announcing SOML.
The initiative was primarily aimed at reducing “child mortality by rapidly increasing access to the most effective diarrhea treatment—zinc and oral rehydration solutions (ORS).”
By the beginning of 2015, CHAI’s Zinc and ORS Program, which was focused on India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda, had “reached nearly 250 million people” included “a network of nearly 150,000 service providers,” according to the United Nations.
The Clinton Health Access Initiative set a goal in 2012 to increase “the percent of children with diarrhea who received ORS and zinc to 80% by 2015 could help prevent 220,000 Nigerian children from dying.”
Hillary’s designation of Boko Haram as a terrorist group would have severely inhibited the business dealings of Lebanese construction magnate and longtime friend of former President Bill Clinton Chagoury in Nigeria.
A top-prosecutor in Nigeria named the Clinton Foundation top donor a “kingpin” of corruption after he made it possible for Nigerian Military Dictator Sani Abacha to steal billions of dollars from the African country.
He was subsequently convicted in Switzerland of money-laundering and helping a criminal organization in connection to the stolen money, but later entered a plea-deal and the charges were expunged.
Chagoury, who was once on a U.S. no-fly list, also confessed in a British court to assisting the Abacha family in transferring $300 million into foreign bank accounts.
Nevertheless, the Clinton Foundation gladly accepted a $1 million to $5 million donation from the nefarious figure.
The Clinton Foundation claimed in 2012:
CHAI began its work in Nigeria in 2007 with programs including in the Niger Delta to strengthen the conflicted region’s HIV/AIDS service infrastructure, which has resulted in a 350% increase in pediatric testing and 70% increase in access to pediatric antiretroviral drugs. CHAI is now taking this vanguard approach to improve access to essential medicines for children, helping to unite businesses, NGOs, and donor organizations around this cause in support of SOML.
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