It’s crime to spend N5trn in military hardwares yet insecurity is unprecedented in Nigeria — HURIWA

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has asked the federal government to put in place a general forensic audit of the military hardwares and softwares to ascertain whether what have been reported as successfully imported are exactly the same with what are evidently on ground.

The call is coming after HURIWA said the federal government invested over N5 trillion in the last quarter of the year 2023 to procure military hardwares.

The Rights group noted that there may as well be in existence, a formidable criminal gang members in the defence institutions that funnel some of the military hardwares to the terrorists, bandits and kidnappers because from abundance of evidence, terrorism and kidnappings have seemingly become multi billion dollars franchises in Nigeria which must be dismantled for peace and stability to be achieved.

HURIWA in a media statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, wondered why the country is in such a spectacular security mess that have attracted global opprobrium to the international image of Nigeria especially because of the twin incidents of mass abductions by terrorists in Borno and Kaduna and Sokoto states in the North East and North West of Nigeria even when officially, Nigeria’s imports expenditure on armoured vehicles have significantly surpassed that on fuel in the final quarter of 2023, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

HURIWA which regretted the alleged large scale procurement corruption or diversion of these military hardwares to terrorists by some unscrupulous elements embedded within the Nigerian military institutions, said experts had concluded that the high expenditures on military weapons is a development that has likely happened due to the worsening security situation in the country.

The Rights group said the heightened state of insecurity and the inability of the armed forces to subdue these forces of evil and negativity, does not show us as a nation that has spent such a humongous amount of funds on military weapons in only a quarter.

HURIWA quoted the official report of the NBS as follows,”The latest foreign trade report by the NBS noted that Nigeria spent over N5.06 trillion on the importation of armoured vehicles, dwarfing the N1.81 trillion spent on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol. This is a difference of N3.25 trillion in Q4 2023.

“Armoured vehicles cover 35.87% of Nigeria’s total import The total import bill for Nigeria in Q4 2023 reached N14.108 trillion, marking a 56.04% increase from the previous quarter and a substantial 163.08% surge from the same quarter in 2022. This significant uptick in imports is largely attributed to the massive investment in armoured vehicles during the period”.

“In fact, armoured vehicles emerged as the predominant category of imports, accounting for 35.87% of the total import value, followed by ordinary motor spirit and gas oil, which accounted for 12.81% and 8.48%, respectively.”

In the face of this reality, HURIWA has stated that it is an intolerable crime for a nation to spend so much on buying military grade weapons that should be deployed to eliminate terrorists, yet the records show that Nigeria’s insecurity has never been this bad in over many years and is about the same unprecedented insecurity climate under which the immediate past government of Muhammadu Buhari spent eight years but rather than combat terrorism, created the atmosphere that nurtured terrorists.

“HURIWA is therefore calling on the President, His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu to carry out a professional and non-partisan equipment audits of the defence institutions to ascertain the fundamental causes of the declining capacity of the military and police to combat terrorists, kidnappers, bandits and armed Fulani herders in the country inspite of massive investment.”