*INSECURITY: HON. SAMUEL ONWUASO CALLS FOR DEFENCE SECTOR REFORMS,*


*By Amb Timothy Nwachukwu.*


*Hon. Samuel Onwuaso, The Honourable Member representing Awka North and South Federal Constituency in the National Assembly has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to initiate an urgent and all encompassing reform of the Nigeria defence sector.*


Hon. Samuel Onwuaso, a member of the House of Representatives Committee on the Army made the call while reacting to the statement credited to the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Burutai on the possible elongation of the bokoharam insurgency for two decades.


*Hon. Onwuaso opined that the reform must address issues ranging from inadequacy of military equipment, remunerations and welfare benefits for soldiers and their families and deployment, leave and structural imbalances within the Nigeria Military.*


*Hon. Onwuaso expressed concern that Nigeria spends less than one per cent of her GDP on defence while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank recommend at least 1.5 per cent of a nation’s GDP on security for countries even without security issues.*



The versatile and outspoken Anambra lawmaker stated that Nigeria has an estimate of 120,000 active personnel in the military forces from an over 200 million population deployed in almost all the states across the federation to support Nigeria police force, while Brazil has 334,500 active military and 1,340,000 reserves, Pakistan as populated as Nigeria and also battling with terrorism has a military strength of 1,204,000 personnel and 550,000 as reserves.



*He reiterated that Boko Haram’s ideological war may be a difficult battle, but it becomes even harder with disenchanted soldiers, insufficient weaponry, among other inherent challenges and thus there is an urgent need for a change of military tactics in the counter- terrorism battle, a periodic psychosocial support for active personnel to help them through the travails of the war, a periodic independent audit for military budgets and expenditures as It will help to curb the corruption in the system and instill accountability measures that will ensure that budgeted resources are not embezzled even as the House of Representatives Committees on Army will not relent in carrying out their oversight function to ensure that the needed reform which will rejig the Nigeria military for optimimum performance and service to the Nation.*


*© Amb Timothy Nwachukwu writes from Awka and can be reached on 08097311499*

hmmm ok