The service chiefs marched on the Ministry of Finance, in order to table their grievances with the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala over issues related to poor funding of the country’s military.
Earlier this week, Army Chief of Accounts and Budget, Maj.-Gen. Abdullahi Muraina said inadequate funding would cause the military to lose the war against terrorism in the country.
During the week, Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh; accompanied by Chief of Army Staff, General Kenneth Minimah; Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Usman Jibrin, and Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Adesola Amosu, confronted the minister about the delay in release of funds budgeted to the Army to help fight the insurgency in the country.
A top source said part of the grievances on the part of the military was demand by some civil servants for cash bribes before releasing monies voted to the armed Forces.
“The civil servants would frustrate all efforts unless they get a certain percentage from the money.
“The Army has not cried out because it is a disciplined institution. It is an act of indiscipline and unprofessional conduct for the Army to complain in public.
“But do you know that because of this frustration, early in the week, all the service chiefs went to the minister of finance to protest to her,” the source said.
In her defense, the Minister said, “Defence spending is top in everything, you know that military establishment needs new things to assist in its work and ours will not be different.
“To be specific, the military has about N968.12bn and we have disbursed N130.7bn between January and April 2014.”
The minister also stated that the Special Forces has a provision of about N1 trillion in 2014 budget.
She made the comments addressing a news conference in Abuja on Friday. She said of the amount released to the Army so far this year, N85.9 billion was for personnel cost and N44.8 billion was for overheads and capital expenditure.