Nigeria’s military service chiefs, on Thursday, opened up on the challenges the military is facing in crushing insurgency in the North East zone of the country.
In a frank interaction with the Senate on the progress the Nigeria Armed Forces have made in the fight against Boko Haram terrorists in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, the service chiefs lamented that the military was still being poorly funded.
They said that the non-release of their security votes by the Presidency contributed to the poor performance of their men in the recent Boko Haram incursions where several people were killed in the North East zone.
The service chiefs led by led by General Abayomi Olonishakin, the Chief of Defence Staff, told the Senate that the fund allocated to the military for North East operations in the 2015 supplementary budget were yet to be released by the Federal Ministry of Finance.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in the 2015 Supplementary Appropriation Bill asked the Senate to approve N465,636,926,857 from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.
The breakdown of the supplementary budget showed that the sum of N559.217billion was meant for the Service Wide Vote (SWV) in which N29.958 billion was provided for the military to battle the Boko Haram insurgents.
At the closed-door meeting with the Senate which lasted for about two hours, Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki, who presided, was told of several issues that the needed to be addressed for the security agencies to win the war against the Boko Haram insurgency.
Gen. Olonishakin briefed the Senators on the challenges faced by the military, particularly the state of their equipment which they said required serious upgrading and restocking.
