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From Desmond Mgboh, Kano
The Chairman, Board of Trustees, Coalition of Arewa Youths, Nastura Ashir Shariff has called on President Muhammad Buhari to immediately to investigate the whereabouts of the security funds released to the immediate past military Service Chiefs to fight insecurity in the country.
Shariff was reacting to AN interview by the National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Babagana Monguno (rtd), who had accused them of squandering funds allocated for the purchase of arms to fight terrorists and bandits.
In BBC Hausa Service interview, Monguno had held that the new Service Chiefs had confirmed that they could not find anything on the ground with regards to the arms purchased for the war against insecurity.
Speaking in Kano with Sunday Sun, the Chairman BOT of Arewa Youths expressed shock at the frank but disturbing disclosure; saying that it was hard to believe that Nigeria has no weapons on the ground for the war despite having released the sum of one billion dollars about three years ago to the ex- security Chiefs to conduct the battle.
“For the past six years, they have been saying that they have procured weapons, yet they had nothing on the ground, he observed while noting that the administration had adopted a cosmetic approach to executing the war.
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Sharriff expressed concern over the handling of the ex- Serice Chiefs upon their retirement, saying that,“ Look at it this way. Because they want them not to be investigated, they quickly rewarded them with ambassadorial appointments so as to give them immunity from any form of probe”
He also lamented that the government was not ready to negotiate or ready to allow some Islamic clerics to intervene with a view of easing the scourge of insecurity in the land.
“They said they would not succumb to that. They said they would rather use the military might to crush the bandits. Yet , they have no weapons” he wondered.
He said that insecurity had dealt a great blow on Northern Nigeria, adding that it was negatively affecting commercial activities, dragging back agricultural activities and messing up the education sector as several schools in the North had been shut down with no timeline for their resumption.
He recommended that while the quest for probe of the whereabouts of the security funds continues, the Federal Government must immediately come up with alternative arrangements to re- fund the military to procure weapons to execute the war against the bandits and insurgents.
