No money has been released to the army in 2020 – Sen. Ndume
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Nigerian Army, Senator Ali Ndume, says soldiers are being starved of funds at a time when the nation’s fighting forces need all the money they can get to put terrorists and bandits to the sword.
“I don’t know what happened from Thursday that I left Abuja, but before Thursday, you can quote me on that, no money has been released to the army as their capital allocation for 2020 and we are in June.
“The president has been giving presidential orders on tackling insecurity but some people responsible for providing the army with funding are not responding. That’s what is baffling me,” Ndume said.
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Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, recently relocated to the epicenter of Nigeria’s insurgency war to boost the morale of the men and women in the trenches.
Ndume says Buratai’s presence on the front-lines has had the required effect.
“Definitely the coming of COAS has made a visible difference. He has taken a break after two months, to re-strategise because the remaining areas are delicate, because they are mixed with civilians being held hostage by the insurgents.
“The army needs to sort that out to avoid high levels of collateral damage; they need to strategize for the last push,” Ndume said.
Boko Haram has killed over 50,000 people in the northeast, displaced millions and abducted thousands, since it commenced its war against the Nigerian state in 2009.
The extremist sect wants a hardline Islamic state of its own, carved out of the nation’s northern region.
