Says arms deal, betrayal of trust
President Muhammadu Buhari Wednesday hosted members of the House of Representatives at the Presidential Villa to a dinner to cement a good working relationship between the the lower chambers and the executive.
The President while addressing the law makers lamented the quantum looting of public funds in the armed forces under the immediate government.
He described the arms purchase deal amounting to about $2billion as a betrayal of trust at various levels.
He said: “Unfortunately for us as a people, we uncovered that billions of naira and hundreds of millions of dollars were expended by the previous government to acquire good equipment and ammunition for the military to use.
“But unfortunately, there was abuse of trust at various levels which cost Nigeria a lot of lives and goodwill. So, because of this, we cannot keep quiet about and it is coming out gradually. It is very unfortunate.”
He added: “It is a known fact that Nigeria earned its respect from Burma to Zaire to Liberia to Sierra Leone. But it reached a stage where the Nigerian military could not secure 14 local governments out of 774 local governments. As I have always said ‘how has the mighty fallen?’
“We are doing our best, and I hope our best will be good enough. There are a lot of Rubicon to be crossed, but let’s be very clear about our objective.”
The President explained that “Our objective is that we first secure the country and efficiently manage it because we’re all in government.
“In fact, we’re the government – the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. So, nobody should contemplate alienating one another. We’ve already set our priorities right during our campaigns to secure the country then efficiently manage it. Securing the country is obviously dealing decisively with Boko Haram.
“When we came in, the military leadership had to be removed and reconstituted, a new set put in with clear target to reorganise, retrain, re-equip and make sure that Boko Haram is uprooted and neutralised.
“We ensure we’ve some good intention with the joint task force comprising the Lake Chad Basin Commission countries of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin, because of good neighborliness, decided to join us. There was an agreement to dedicate a number of troops to be sighted in different places in the Lake Chad Basin Commission so that with the end of the raining season, an aggressive attack will be unleashed on Boko Haram. But we’re realistic to know that Nigeria is the battle ground. So, we expended the meager resources we’ve to ensure the morale of the military is raised by getting officers to be on the ground with the men.
“Even by the standard of your predecessors, some of you are still here, but there has been unprecedented political onslaught where 70 percent of your colleagues did not come back. This is something you must reflect upon.
“Let us make up our minds that whatever we’re doing, we’re doing it for this country. Let’s secure the country first. Let us efficiently manage the country. If the capital of a developed country, people killed 130, what is Nigeria? We’ve a problem, but we’re very lucky in the fact that the intention of the terrorists is to divide the country. I think they’ve misfired”.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, assured that the House would support Buhari’s government
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