By Bayo Davids
The move by the House of Representatives to hold the nation’s military forces accountable for funds allocated to fight insecurity is eliciting divergent reactions from Nigerians, particularly security experts.
It would be recalled that penultimate Thursday while addressing a press conference on the state of the nation, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen expressed the readiness of the parliament to ensure that monies allocated to the military to address the nation’s security challenges are judiciously utilized.
“As emphasized in our legislative agenda, the time has come for us to demand greater transparency from our security agencies and full accountability for all the funds spent and earmarked for spending in the sector. We will hold the security agencies accountable for funds allocated to them to fight insecurity,” Mr Abbas said.
Speaking exclusively with our correspondent, a former military intelligence officer, Capt Aliyu Babangida (retd), welcomed the declaration by the lawmakers, noting that funding must be proportional with result to show a sense of seriousness in the fight against insurgency.
Babangida who upon his retirement floated the Goldwater Security Resource and Options Consults, argued that for a long time, accountability has suffered in the affairs of the nation particularly with regards to defence and security spendings.
He said, “For two years in the Goodluck Jonathan administration and the Buhari Years, I called for matching expenses with results. At a point in time on a radio station, we dwelt on the topic that the army was spending 90 plus per cent of their budgetary allocation on recurrent expenditure. Recurrent expenditure being salaries and what have you! If you have received monies in hundreds of billions of naira and you are spending it on payment of salaries; then every soldier should be as fat as a Teaching Hospital matron.
“We were not seeing results that match expenditure. What I’m saying is simple: Monies are allocated, time frames are given, the money get spent, the time get expended but we never get results. Instead, the Generals comeback with stories that it is asymmetric war, attritional warfare and what have you.
“At a point in time, Workshops and conferences held at the Nigerian Army Resource Centre on spiritual warfare. It is on record! That day, I was crestfallen when people at the Nigerian Army Resource Centre actually sat down and organize a seminar on spiritual warfare, not anti-terrorist warfare, not counter-terrorist warfare but spiritual warfare.”
While calling for the adoption of management by objective model, the security expert added that it would be fair for a General to be summoned and given a plateful of problems and ask which one he can solve. “The General will pick the ones he can solve and he will be given an estimate list. He would ask how much he needs to solve the problems. Having stated the amount he needs; he can be given 10 or 25 per cent back up. So, if he is asking for N100, he can be given N110 and he will give a timeline and a blueprint. It can be that by the first week, we could have spent two per cent and go a certain distance in the journey. If at the end, he has not achieved what or more than was projected, then he has to go home.”
He continued, “This is nothing personal, this is business. We have a country to run. Nigeria already has her back against the rest of the world as far as insecurity is concerned. It is very unfair for you to appoint Service Chiefs who end up achieving nothing, then you retire them on full benefits on that particular position on which they achieved nothing. It’s like a mechanic who gave you estimate of what to buy to fix your car. you gave him the money and when you return to pick your car, he came up with fresh stories.
Then, you retire him as your mechanic with full benefits.
“We should have Generals who can stand up and say, we can’t do this job. Let us step aside and go home with what we have already gotten. It is better that way than sitting down for four years as Chief of Army Staff who did nothing about everything but sitting at home to collect full benefits. You have to earn your benefits.”
According to Babangida, the lack of official eagerness to do things the right way is to blame for the influx of bandits into the country.
“We cannot continue to allow cattle breeders and all manner of nonentities who will not to Togo or Ghana but they come to Nigeria to play because we are masters of ineptitudes. Illegal miners come here, bandits come here, kidnappers and terrorists are here. If these same bandits go to Ghana, they can’t shine like they do here,” he added.
While the retired Army Captain has faith in the parliament’s ability to walk it’s talk, another security expert, Kabiru Adamu sounds less optimistic.
Adamu who manages Beacon Consulting Limited, a private firm providing enterprise risk and security management solutions told this medium that the parliament spoke up because it wants to be heard.
“I think the House of Representatives is simply playing to the gallery. They know that there is a lot of national concern and discourse about the prevailing insecurity in the country. Again, I repeat that the pledge to hold the military accountable is playing to the gallery. How are they going to achieve this objective? They have not told us. Until I see them approach their oversight function with metrics coupled with monitoring and evaluation functions, I won’t take them seriously.
“By metrics, they should tell us what they are measuring. For instance, if the military says they need helicopters to tackle banditry, what is the level of banditry at the moment? What is the timeframe the military will use the helicopters to bring banditry down to say by 40 per cent from its current level? So, by the time they are doing their oversight, they can look at these metrics. But a mere statement of declaration of intent to hold the military to account is politics and playing to the gallery,” he said.
On his part, a certified golden member of the International Security Association, Switzerland, Mr Jackson Ojo expressed little hope in the ability of the lawmakers to deliver on their promise. He premised his position on the fact that past probes failed to yield positive outcomes.
“If they want to probe, they should probe. There has been power probe, the Niger Delta Development Commission probe has gone and a lot more took place in time past. Who was prosecuted? There may be probes but there will be amicable settlement at the end of the day,” he stated.