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Farouk Kperogi:boko Haram,alex Badeh, Jonathan And The Stolen Trillions by DrDee1(m): 10:07pm On Aug 08, 2015 |
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Farooq A. Kperogi at 12:00 AM
Boko Haram, Alex Badeh,
Jonathan and the Stolen Trillions
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
I thought I had become inured to the
scandal of brazen corruption in Nigeria
until I watched the interview former
Chief of Defense Staff Alex Badeh
granted to Channels TV on August 1. It’s
the worst form of self-indictment I’ve
ever seen in my life.
Badeh told Channels TV that the last time
the Nigerian military bought equipment
was 9 years ago, that is, in the twilight of
Obasanjo’s second term. “If I go down
memory lane, I think the last time any
piece of equipment was bought for the
Nigerian army was some APCs that were
bought in 2006, and how many were
they? They were few,” he said , pointing
out that the Nigerian military flies “the
oldest fighter aeroplanes in the whole
world.” The Alpha jets that form the
backbone of the military onslaught on
Boko Haram, Badeh told Channels TV,
were bought in 1981.
If Badeh is right (and I have no reason
to think he is wrong since he was
Nigeria’s most senior military officer
until his sack) that basically means that,
from Musa Yar’adua’s administration
when the Boko Haram menace started, to
the end of the Jonathan presidency when
it reached a crescendo, not a single piece
of equipment was purchased for the
Nigerian military. The military depended
on obsolete equipment at best and no
equipment at all at worst to fight a
determined and sophisticated Boko
Haram.
If I didn’t hear this directly from Badeh
himself, I would have dismissed it as
some wacky conspiracy theory. But it
isn’t the revelation by itself that is
scandalous; it is the fact that the neglect
of the military is coterminous with the
extravagant ballooning of the Nigerian
military’s budget. In 2010, for instance,
government budgeted N836,016,773,836
(which translates to $5.07 billion at 165
naira to a dollar) for the military. In
2011 the amount ballooned to
N1,080,894,801,178 ($6.55 billion). In
2012 it increased to
N1,154,857,159,110.00 ($6.99 billion). It
increased even more in 2013 to
N1,178,832,576,309 ($7.14 billion). Last
year, it was scaled down a bit to
N1,174,897,477,334.00 ($7.12 billion).
That’s trillions of naira gone down the
begrimed pockets of corrupt government
officials in the name of fighting Boko
Haram!
My head spun as I looked at the figures.
Now, Badeh says in spite of these
trillions that the Jonathan government
budgeted for the military, “the last time
any piece of equipment was bought for
the Nigerian army was … in 2006!” So
what happened to the trillions of naira?
Every Nigerian should be asking this
until we get an answer.
After a whopping $32.88 billion in
military budget to fight Boko Haram in
the last five years, we don’t have a single
piece of military equipment to show for
it. This simply boggles the mind. It’s
beyond scandalous; it’s unacceptably
and insanely criminal.
In spite of all that money, hundreds of
thousands of our compatriots in
northeastern Nigeria have been
murdered—and are still being murdered
daily— by Boko Haram, and thousands
more are internally displaced and writhe
in unspeakable hardship. Lives have
been disrupted, businesses have
collapsed, and thousands have lost even
the will to live. Yet one of the men who
superintended over the criminal
enterprise that was military budget goes
on TV, without a tinge of moral
compunction, to gloat about the
incompetence of the government he was
a part of.
I am angry, very angry. This sort of
criminal impunity should never go
unpunished. We are talking here about
the twin evils of unconscionably
mindboggling theft and of the
heartrending destruction of the life of an
entire region of the country. I know
President Buhari is aware of the scale
and depth of the criminality that
characterized the military budgets in the
last 6 or so years, but we should still
prod him to not only recover the stolen
trillions but bring to justice the criminals
who masterminded this astonishingly
conscienceless heist.
This is all the more unpardonable
because from Badeh to former President
Jonathan, and all the minions in
between, the fact of the Nigerian
military’s unpreparedness, which was all
too obvious to even a perfunctory
observer, was intensely denied. Military
officers were court-martialed and
sentenced to death for refusing to fight
Boko Haram with bare hands. In other
words, they were condemned to death
for refusing to commit suicide. Fighting
a well-armed enemy with bare hands is
suicide. Pure and simple. But, in press
conferences, Alex Badeh passionately
defended the death sentence passed on
soldiers who mutinied and ran for their
lives. Now he admits that the military he
headed had no equipment to fight Boko
Haram.
Former President Jonathan also once
threatened to withdraw soldiers from
Borno State when the state’s governor
said Boko Haram was better armed and
more motivated than the Nigerian
military—a fact Badeh has now
admitted. During a February 25, 2014
presidential media chat, Jonathan said,
“The statement is a little bit unfortunate
because you don’t expect a governor to
make that kind of statement and if the
governor of Borno State feels that the
Nigerian Armed Forces are not useful, he
should tell Nigerians. I will pull them out
for one month; whether he will stay in
that his Government House; just one
month, but I will fly back to take over
the state.”
When you add all this to the recent
revelation by SaharaReporters of a
N1,751,864,867 ($8,853,600) fraud in the
Office of the National Security Adviser
over purchase of arms and ammunition
to fight Boko Haram, which never made
it to Nigeria, all lingering doubts that the
Jonathan presidency was a massive
criminal enterprise are removed. I don’t
know what would have become of
Nigeria had Jonathan won another term.
Share 1 Like |
Re: Farouk Kperogi:boko Haram,alex Badeh, Jonathan And The Stolen Trillions by jammani(m): 10:15pm On Aug 08, 2015 |
Ok |
Re: Farouk Kperogi:boko Haram,alex Badeh, Jonathan And The Stolen Trillions by Mamaflex(f): 10:19pm On Aug 08, 2015 |
summary pls |
Re: Farouk Kperogi:boko Haram,alex Badeh, Jonathan And The Stolen Trillions by tayoxx(m): 10:53pm On Aug 08, 2015 |
too long....but on a serious not....Badeh needs to be probed |
Re: Farouk Kperogi:boko Haram,alex Badeh, Jonathan And The Stolen Trillions by sammyj: 10:58pm On Aug 08, 2015 |
The past administration is a big fraud. Thats all !! |
Re: Farouk Kperogi:boko Haram,alex Badeh, Jonathan And The Stolen Trillions by vicadex07(m): 11:12pm On Aug 08, 2015 |
This is perfect. Tanoids wont see this. The cheif wailer ignores this sort of thread. PDP is boko haram - Gen Azazi |
Re: Farouk Kperogi:boko Haram,alex Badeh, Jonathan And The Stolen Trillions by DelGardo: 11:23pm On Aug 08, 2015 |
Jonathan and his co-travelers should be tried for crimes against humanity, simples. |
Re: Farouk Kperogi:boko Haram,alex Badeh, Jonathan And The Stolen Trillions by citizenY(m): 11:31pm On Aug 08, 2015 |
Can this be true? I no fit sleep again..... this one Don pass bloody fool. . |
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