Before President Jonathan Borrows the 1 Billion Dollars to ‘Fight Boko Haram’
By Peregrino Brimah
“I would like to bring to your attention, the urgent need to upgrade the equipment, training and logistics of our Armed Forces and Security services to enable them more forcefully confront this serious threat. For this reason, I seek the concurrence o the National Assembly for external borrowing of not more than $1 billion dollars…” – President Jonathan of Nigeria to David Mark on July 15, 2014
The president of Nigeria wishes to borrow a billion dollars from abroad to ‘fight Boko Haram.’
Where is our money? Senate President, David Mark who this letter was addressed to, says that the $20 billion for an only 18 month period examined was not missing but was ‘unaccounted for.’
We will like to advise that the Nigerian government please take one billion from that account and use it for the security upgrade. If the entire 5 years of the Jonathan presidency are audited, the total amount missing/unaccounted for is estimated at up to $127 billion. Why will these wicked people not give Nigeria 5 billion from that missing/unaccounted for billions that they use to buy senators for impeachment processes with sums of $300-1 million; but rather they wish to disgrace the nation and put us in binding and crippling foreign debt with this additional loan?
Why does the senate not immediately truncate Diezani Allison-Madueke’s fraudulent kerosene subsidy scam that plunders $4million daily from the poor families from Chibok to Otuoke, a total of $1.5 billion dollars per year and utilize this money she uses to wear costly jewelry, and diverts through renting private jets, and uses to keep her stooges tripping with Naomi Campbell in exorbitant Yachts in land-of-flowers Switzerland, and ‘borrow’ Nigeria these billions for our security upgrades? While, of course not forgetting to lock her up for the robbery in broad-day-light.
The need for finances and upgrades to combat terror can well be legitimized; however the simple format of organized life demands that before new funds are processed for any operation, there must be an audit and thorough review of prior utility and investment of funds. What is and has the Nigerian government done in the past 5 years and with now up to 25% of the annual budget towards fighting Boko Haram – who are described as having the upper hand today – and overall upgrading of the Nigerian army? Can we have external or open internal (known youth activist) auditors review the current accounts and expenditures of the Nigerian security departments?
Before we borrow this one billion dollars from the white master, can Nigerian have a detailed presentation of the current administration’s strategies against terror, the plan to improve the army currently experiencing as many and over one hundred deserters/week and the long term over all security update target? Can we see the quality control system that is in place and will be in place to oversee the utility of the billions being spent on security from our 25% budgetary allocation to security and this additional one billion dollars?
How does the Jonathan presidency, minister of defense, Spy Aliyu Gusau account for the cobra tanks, APC’s and weapons being transferred to Boko Haram currently, which are being used to decimate unarmed civilian farming populations in the north?
What guarantee do we have that new equipment will not also be transferred to the Boko Haram terrorists and new air defense systems will not continue to be used to rather provide cover for Boko Haram in their activities as obtains today? Without such guarantee the people rather request the full pull-out of the army from the north east as the army constitutes a greater danger by transferring sophisticated equipment to the terrorists while maintaining the de-arming of the sitting duck civilian populace.
What maintenance guarantee do we have for this new expenditure? We purchased drones during the Obasanjo era, as part of the last 15 years of uninterrupted PDP administration of Nigeria and the billions invested into that acquisition are now known to have been nothing more than charity to Israel. It is 2014; we are tired of living as idiots and dying as fools.
Without the arrest of sponsors of terror, funds are simply being poured into a basket. We demand that before any further extra-budgetary finances are secured for ‘combating terror,’ that the sponsors of terror who ‘dine with the president,’ must be brought to book. We demand that Bamanga Tukur a Boko Haram sympathizer at the very least is brought to book for his position in support of the terrorists. We demand that the Borno state government officials implicated in the Abba Moro White report of 2012 on Jonathan and NSA Dasuki’s desk are immediately brought to book.
Combating terror is a multi-pronged approach, simply siphoning billions of dollars alone to a defunct and de-moralized army; funds for technology, training and equipment that does not even actually get to the soldiers involved and dying in combat, simply does not work. Nigeria must go after the sponsors of terror now and lock them up and kill them, before any other methods that have failed for the past 5 years of this administration and that have allowed the pogrom deaths of over 80,000 northern poor farmers and the displacement of over 3 million, to continue. It is time for maturity and responsibility.
We patriotic civilians of Nigeria are ready to step in. We have requested executive approval from President Jonathan and our men, the thousands of civilian-JTF, the hunters in Borno and committed Nigerians across the nation including signed up ex-soldiers are on stand-by for Jonathan’s responsible approval for a civilian army to sack Borno’s forests of the terrorists. Our method will cost next to nothing as compared to the present hopeless and hopelessly expensive approach, and is tested and trusted as we all are witnessing the impressive impact of civilian volunteers in Iraq’s resistance to the ISIS Takfiri terror campaign.
Proliferation and sustenance of terror cannot continue to pay top government officials who see it as a means to swallow billions of dollars committed to the provision of security. Nigerians have had enough of Boko Haram; it is high time these officials who benefit from maintaining the terror and protecting Boko Haram, look elsewhere for funds to embezzle.