Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan wants the government to borrow $1bn
to strengthen the military's capability to fight militant Islamists. Mr Jonathan
wrote to parliament, asking for the expenditure to be approved.

Nigeria has a military budget of about $6bn a year but large sums are lost to
corruption, critics say. Mr Jonathan has faced intense criticism over the
government's failure to curb the increasingly brutal insurgency waged by the
Boko Haram group. The Islamist group caused international outrage in April when
it abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in its heartland of north-eastern Nigeria.

In the letter to the Senate and House of Representatives, Mr Jonathan said he
wanted to borrow the extra money as part of a "government-to-government
arrangement". He did not specify which country he was looking at making a
deal with. Mr Jonathan said there was an "urgent need" to upgrade the
equipment, training and logistics of the armed forces and security services
to help them confront the "serious threat" posed by Boko Haram. "For this
reason, I seek the concurrence of the National Assembly for external borrowing
of not more than $1bn," he said.

Nigeria's military is receiving help from the US, UK, China, France and Israel to
secure the release of the schoolgirls. Rights groups have repeatedly accused the
military of carrying out widespread abuses against civilians, as it tries to hunt
down insurgents. Mr Jonathan sent more troops to the north-east last year after
declaring a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, the three states
worst-affected by the insurgency. However, Boko Haram has stepped up attacks
since then.

New York-based Human Rights Watch says more than 2,000 civilians have been killed in
Nigeria this year by Boko Haram. The deaths occurred in around 95 separate attacks in
more than 70 towns and villages in the north-east, where Boko Haram launched its insurgency
in 2009.

Source: BBC News

Mxm.
More money to loot.
What happened to the #1Trillion defence budget?