$1 B WITHDRAWAL FROM E CA: F G’ S EXPLANATION UN TIDY

different political dispensation, squirrelled away money meant to equip the military in the past does not mean the military should be left to its own devices, or that every allocation to the military will suffer the same fate.”

Mohammed said that the All Progressives Congress government is a disciplined government that would not allow allocated funds to end up in private pockets or spent on prayers.

He said: “We will always empower the military and other security agencies to be better able to carry out their tough tasks.

“The controversy over the approval of 1 billion dollars by the NGF is absolutely unnecessary and unhelpful.”

The minister said $1 billion was not too much for the military to tackle the security challenges facing the country.

“Security of lives and property is at the core of the existence of any government, and the NGF understands this quite well, going by its action in approving the withdrawal from the ECA”, he added.

According to him, had the military been better equipped to tackle Boko Haram in the early days of the insurgency, thousands of lives, including those of service men and women, could have been saved and that the war could have been over a long time ago.

He also said that if the funds meant to equip the military had not been diverted into private pockets, there might be no need today to withdraw any money from the ECA for that purpose.

It is becoming clearer that this government came into power with an attitude to pay little or no regards to public feeling otherwise it would have been proactive in its handling of issues of public interest. The government is simply reactive.

Rather than blame those who opposed the withdrawal of the money, the government should look inwards and ask itself if it could have handled the issue better.

This obviously is not the first important policy issue to be mishandled by this administration. It certainly will not be the last. The Office of the Vice President has to issue several statements to state its case in the allegation by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resource, Dr Ibe Kachikwu’s allegation that the Group Managing Director, Dr Maikanti Baru did not follow due process in the awards of contract. The same scenario is playing out again with regard to the plan to withdraw $1 billion from ECA to tackle security challenges.