Senator Ali Ndume, the Chairman of Senate Committee on Army did not want to sweep under the carpet the predicament hindering the army from winning the war against insurgency and facing internal security challenges in the country.
Ndume who is attending the 12th Biennial Training Conference of the Nigerian Army Finance Corps holding at Le’ Meridien Hotels and Golf Resort, Uyo came out point-blank: under-funding of Nigerian Army.
Speaking to journalists at the venue of the conference on Monday, the Senator representing Borno South in the National Assembly expressed dissatisfaction with the funds the Federal Government has so far released to the critical sector.
He emphatically answered ‘No! I am not satisfied. In fact, I was shocked when the Army came to budget defence and we discovered that no funds in 2019 under Capital Expenditure was released to them except one week ago that N7 billion was released of the proposed N63 billion budget but N14 billion approved.
“I was wondering how the army was coping with the insurgency war. The Nigerian Army is resilient and they never complained that they had problem of fund releases. Our role in the Senate is key: we can do what they cannot and we can say what they cannot say.”
On Senate giving the Army necessary support in terms of funding in the 2020 budget, he said “We are doing that looking at assessment and that we have gone on fact-finding mission to find out from them what they need. We are going to convince the executive that Federal Government’s allocation for Nigerian Army in the 2020 budget is grossly inadequate based on what they need to do. I can assure from the National Assembly, we are giving the Nigerian Army the necessary support including the funding so that they will be able to face the critical role and challenges we have at hand now.”
Ndume applauded the hosting of the workshop, saying that to the Senate “it means a lot because of the topic especially with the topic on the involvement of the Nigerian Army in the security and the importance of funding. We are in a war situation and we are in a budget period. As you will racall, the joint committee on Army in the National Assembly pays particular interest to fact-finding and need assessment.
“And now that the army is holding this annual conference, we want to join them so that we can know exactly what is going on to provide the necessary support that the Nigerian Army needs at this critical time where we have challenges in internal security not only in the North East but also all over the country. We have issues in North West and North Central; we have security isues in South-South and in South East. And the army is greatly involved in internal security because it has almost overwhelmed the other security agencies. Coming with the on-going war, the budget together with the funding of the Nigerian Army is a critical factor. The army cannot succeed without enough funds to execute this key and important sector.
“Constitutionally, the main function of government is the provision of security and welfare for its citizens. And therefore the National Assembly is interested in this sector. And I am particularly interested because I am affected by the insurgency. The epic centre of it is Borno and I am coming from Borno. The next state affected is Adamawa. And Benue has its own share of insecurity. We as individuals are interested and we are making effort to give support to the army for them to achieve their constitutional role in this critical time,” the Senator noted.
