Inadequate Funds Hampering Fight Against Insurgency – Army
Adetokunbo Fakeye with agency reports
Contrary to the believe of many people in Nigeria and outside that Nigerian army is not capable of subdueing the Boko Haram activities, inadequate funding has been attributed to its inability to effectively fight terrorists in the country.
Nobody could authoritatively tell the man in-charge of Nigerian Army Accounts and Budget.
Major General Abdullahi Muraina who know it all stated this at the opening of the 2014 training week of Nigerian Army Finance Corps for Warrant Officer/Senior Non-Commissioned Officers, held at Jaji, Kaduna State, yesterday.
Hear him, “Currently, budgetary allocation for the military is inadequate to meet the contemporary security challenges and also cater for the welfare of the Nigerian Army.
“The Nigerian Army is enmeshed in the bureaucratic bottlenecks for the funding approvals for military operations. This calls for a review as the increasing speed at which the effects of conflict appear in the operational environment will continue to challenge commanders.
“It is our humble appeal that government should evolve other means of funding and supporting military operations than the normal budgetary allocation. Such means include but not limited to strategic cooperation and liaison with other civil industries for the production of uniforms and other equipment”, he said.
The general said further, “We are not oblivious of the constraints on revenue generation and the fact that government has so many other responsibilities, but we are appealing to the government to review the current template of funding of the military, considering the current security challenges.
“For instance, the army budget for this year is just N4.8billion. Now, to provide only one item for the troops engaged in the operation in the North-east will gulp most of the amount.
“Assuming we committed 20,000 troops, the jacket and the helmet is in the average of about $1,000; if you change that to naira, it is about N150,000; if you now have about 20,000 troops, this means they are going to spend about $20million and that is about N3billion. N3billion as a percentage of N4.8billion which is the capital budget for this year is more than 50 per cent and that is just one item; we are not talking about uniforms; we are not talking about boots; we are not talking about structure where they will stay; we are not talking about training, because training is key to enhancing the capability of the force”, he submitted.
Gen. Muraina also submitted that, a special operation fund could be included in defence budget and placed under the control of the Chief of Army Staff.
In his speech, Chief of Army Staff, Lt.Gen. Kenneth Minimah, who was represented at the occasion by the GOC 1 Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army, Kaduna, Maj.-Gen. Kenneth Osujinoted noted with regrets that there had been an increase in the wave of socio-political and ethno-religious crises threatening the nation’s security.
He said the insecurity in the country had assumed higher dimension which had left serious demands on the resources of the Nigerian Army.
