Chad's recent termination of its long-standing defense agreement with France is driven by a desire to assert national sovereignty, former Chadian Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo told Sputnik.
Asked by Sputnik about the reasons that led the authorities to make this decision, Kebzabo referred in particular to the country's armed forces' recent clashes with Boko Haram terrorists in the Lake Chad region. According to him, the army lost "a lot of men".
"This was partly because we had no intelligence. And what does the French army do in such cases? It has all the resources and equipment to help us with aerial surveillance. That would have prevented us from suffering a lot of damage, but it didn't happen," Kebzabo said.
Thus, N'Djamena seems determined to "ensure its security without going through a third country," said the politician, who headed the Chadian government from October 2022 to January 2024.
"The presence of foreign troops in an independent country doesn't bring any benefits," he says.