A civil rights advocacy group – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF
NIGERIA (HURIWA) has expressed optimism that in line with his zero
tolerance to procurement corruption, the chief of army staff Lieutenant
General Yusuf Tukur Buratai will quickly reorganize the finance
department of the Army to ensure that no General officer commanding any
of the division or indeed any officer of the military could have access
to huge amount of money at any given time without effective checks and
balances.
Also, the Rights group which had earlier in the year lauded the Army
Chief for promptly responding to a freedom of information request on
counter terrorism expenses sent in by a Lagos based non-governmental
group-SERAP, has tasked the Army’s high command to hand over the General
officer commanding (GOC) 8 Division Sokoto Major General Hakeem Otiki to
the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission (EFFCC)to enable a
thorough, independent and transparent investigation to be carried out on
the reported theft of #400 million by escorts delegated by the GOC.
“As a human rights group with tremendous respect for the many lofty
ideas of anti-corruption strategies introduced by the current Army
Chief, we expect that the reported disappearance of such a humongous
cash belonging to the country purportedly meant for the counter
insurgency war, is handled independently in line with established
precedence set by the current chief of Army staff who had indeed handed
over several Generals to the EFCC in the past in connection with the
alleged diversion of resources budgeted for the prosecution of the
counter terrorism war”.
HURIWA also charged the Army Chief to use his good offices to introduce
stringent measures which will further tighten the ways cash transactions
are done so it would be easier to prevent this kind of scandal that
reportedly occurred in Sokoto which has brought enormous opprobrium on
the global image of the country.
The Rights group stressed that it believes that the current Army Chief
has the zeal and capacity to ensure that these dynamic changes are
effectively implemented even as it counseled the COAS not to perceive
well conceived opinion of hitherto friendly CSO’s such as HURIWA as
targeted at rubishing his acclaimed milestones. “HURIWA notes with
displeasure that some amorphous groups with no traceable offices and
which are not registered by the Nigerian state are in the habits of
misconstruing and misinterpreting the good intentions of HURIWA embodied
in our public statements suggesting how best to successfully wage the
counter terror war. These profiteers who are simply empty headed
sycophants think the only way to show friendship and partner with the
Army is to always issue praise songs and pour encomiums no matter how
bizarre and unreal on the person of the COAS even as these groups keep
publishing diatribes and unsubstantiated accusations against HURIWA and
the person of the National Coordinator. As quality partners we think it
is the best mode of relationship to exchange our views publicly and
mildly since private exchanges of letters with the office of COAS may
not be always ideal for some public interest advocacy campaigns which
aren’t meant to diminish the achievements of the current chief of Army
staff or the institution of the Army”.
Specifically on the reported scandal of the missing millions, HURIWA
stated that: “It is certainly not enough to detain the said military
General in a military facility and certainly it is insufficient to rely
only on internal mechanisms to unravel the circumstances surrounding the
reported disappearance of such a huge amount of cash. The most logical
thing to do is to also invite the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) and ICPC to provide forensic investigative skills to
uncover the truth behind the extensively damaging scam and to enforce
the relevant anti-economic crimes’ law where necessary even as the
indicted persons must be afforded the opportunities for fair hearing in
line with section 36(5) of the Constitution”.
HURIWA stated that it has just been told that the General Officer
Commanding (GOC), 8 Division, Sokoto, Major General Hakeem Otiki, is
reportedly placed under house arrest, Daily Sun has gathered.
The Rights group stated that from media sources, the officer who was
redeployed to the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON), is
currently being detained at the Officers Mess where he is being guarded
by heavily armed soldiers and may be moved to Abuja anytime from now
just as it stated that available informationstates that when finally in
Abuja, he is expected to be grilled by personnel from the Directorate of
Military Intelligence (DMI), Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB), and
Nigerian Army Corps of Military Police (NACMP).
Quoting media reports, HURIWA stated that it will be the standard
practice to bring all persons implicated in this scandal to justice
going by the report that the so-called VIP, allegedly being escorted by
the soldiers who happens to be the younger brother of the former GOC,
may have actually connived with the soldiers to steal the N400million as
he is nowhere to be found.