The Nigerian Military has defended the Federal Government’s bid to withdraw the sum of $1billion from the Excess Crude Account to fight the Boko Haram insurgency.
The outgoing Director of Defence Information, Major General John Enenche, described such move as apt, considering the stage of the fight against the terrorists in the North East.
“It is not too much at all; it’s the right thing to do so that the security challenge will not raise up its ugly head again,” he said on Sunday during a special end of the year programme on Channels Television.
“The $1billion is being provided at the right time and I don’t think there is any problem to that at all.”
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The Defence Headquarters spokesman further explained the rationale behind the move, stressing that it would help the military to effectively curb the activities of the insurgents.
He opined that the controversies that have accompanied the government’s decision were due to the fact that some Nigerians were confused about the purpose intended for the withdrawal of such amount of money.
“I will not want people to be confused and most people will agree with me or with us rather that it is more expensive to maintain peace than to allow the situation to get out of hand before you now start taking care of it,” he said.
Giving illustrations of what the terrorism war looks like, the Major General said: “When in war, operations in crisis, after the initial success, there is what we call exploitation. Exploitation is very intrinsic, very technical – and the kind of situation we have in our hands in the North East, it is an asymmetrical situation; it’s not a conventional war.
“We need special equipment and special weapons of which we didn’t have all and we now say, look, let us get all these special equipment. Talk about the Tucano aircraft, for instance, the 12 that we are going to get for over $590million; that is more than half of the money already.
“And then you talk about all the special equipment that the Army will need, and that the Navy will also need in the Lake Chad basin area – all these put together, it (the money) is not too much at all.”
Enenche also compared the war against the terrorist group with a farming technique – gleaning.
He said it requires more time and effort for the military to sustain the achievements recorded so far in containing the terrorists’ activities in the disturbed region of the country.
The Nigeria Governors’ Forum had giver the Federal Government a go-ahead to withdraw $1bn from the nation’s excess crude account as parts of its support for the war against the insurgency.
While the move had generated many questions after the government said the terrorists have been technically defeated, the Presidency said part of the money would be used to address other security concerns in the country.
