The Minister of Defence, Bashir Magashi has complained the Nigerian military is short-staffed and not properly funded to tackle the various security challenges facing the country.
In a brief after Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, Mr Magashi said he made a presentation at the meeting on the security challenges facing Nigeria.
He said they spoke about their shortcomings, manpower shortage, inadequate funding for the Ministry of Defence, the operations they have been conducting, including successes and failures of each of the operations right from Operation Lafia Dole to Operation Tawase.
He noted that the shortcomings of each of the operations were discussed and God so kind members of the council contributed and in no distant time there will be a change in the conduct of our affairs in the Ministry of Defence.
The defence sector has for the past five years taken a large chunk of Nigeria’s budget, often larger than education and health despite Mr Magashi’s claim of low funding for the military. It is noteworthy that in the current 2020 budget, which is about to be amended, about N878 billion of the 10.59 trillion (about 8 per cent) was allocated to defence.
Army chief Tukur Buratai and several officials have also repeatedly complained that money is often not released for items and projects approved in the budget. The Nigerian military is currently involved in multiple internal security operations across the country.
The military is battling the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-east, armed bandits in the North-west and North-central, as well as militants and pirates in the South-south.
Many observers have raised concerns that a lot of the task the military is involved in should be police work but for the inadequacies of the Nigeria Police Force. Despite drafting the military to solve most of these security challenges, however, the insecurity across the country appears to worsen and hundreds of people are killed or kidnapped weekly across Nigeria.
In one of such recent attacks, it was reported how over 70 people were killed in Sokoto within when bandits attacked communities in Sabon Birni Local Government Area last week, such attacks, like others before it, has since been condemned by President Muhammadu Buhari.
In neighbouring Katsina State, armed men suspected to be bandits killed a district head and a party chairman on Monday.
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