A Human rights and governmental accountability organisation, the Socio-economic Rights and Accountability Project, (SERAP) has appealed to the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari to set up a board of inquiry to look into military spending in the country between 1999 and 2018.
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This request comes in the face of the recent losses suffered by the Military in which a huge number of men and materiel was lost to Boko haram insurgents.
There has also been a video purportedly by soldiers who survived the attack that obsolete weapons were being used on the battlefield thereby causing needless deaths and casualties on the side of the Nigerian Military.
SERAP wrote an open letter the Nigerian President saying the inquiry being asked for was to promote accountability and transparency within the Nigerian Military.
The rights group said further in its open letter that such an investigation will ensure that funds meant for military operations are spent for that purpose and end the vulnerability and killings of Nigerian soldiers on the front lines.
The rights group while citing the reported killing of several Nigerian soldiers in the recent Boko Haram attack in Metele village of Borno state, urged President Buhari to refer all allegations of corruption in the spending of funds meant to purchase arms for Nigerian soldiers to the Internal Criminal Court.
Excerpts from the letter read;
“Several billions of naira allocated to the military to defend the country have neither contributed to improving the ability of Nigerian soldiers to fight Boko Haram and other armed groups nor provided the much-needed security especially for Nigerians in the north-east of the country.”
The International rights organisation further alleged that the army’s inability to respond adequately to the Boko Haram insurgency suggests mismanagement in the spending of the country’s defence budgets.