Opinion
By Emmanuel Onwubiko
GODSGIFT Onyedinefu, a reporter with one of the National dailies did a good analysis of security budgeting statistics in Nigeria since 2015. In the piece done on January 23rd 2023, Godsgift Onyedinefu made the following valid points whose citations i will adopt herewith.
The journalist stated that: Nigeria has seen a dramatic increase in its defence spending in recent years but analysts say it has yet to make a dent in insecurity.
Also, the analyst pointed out that since May 2015, when President Muhammadu Buhari resumed office, the allocation to the defence sector has seen a steady rise running into trillions of naira, in a bid to tackle the multifaceted and growing security threats across the country.
The country continues to battle diverse and high-level security challenges, including Boko Haram terrorism, kidnappings and crude oil theft; it has seen the emergence of the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), farmer-herder clashes, banditry, separatist activities, and other violent attacks.
The increased budgetary allocation to the security sector is borne out of the understanding that more funding is required to combat insecurity by boosting the military’s capabilities, especially through the purchase of military hardware and platforms.
The defence budget comprises recurrent and capital expenditures of the Ministry of Defence, the Defence Headquarters, Army, Air Force, and Navy, and other institutions such as Defence Intelligence, College, Missions and Industries.
However, the reporter hit the nail on the head when this view was made lucid disclosing that security analysts and reports say despite the billions of naira spent in procuring state-of-the-art military platforms, security has not improved as citizens die daily at the hands of bandits, terrorists, separatists and other criminals.
Okechukwu Odeh, an Abuja-based security analyst, while quoting a recent report by Nextier SPD, said violent attacks rose by over 14 percent within the last two years, showing that security threats are still growing.
“Today, people travel by road mostly because they can’t afford air tickets, and that is even due to the prevailing economic hardship. No one region in the country is safe today, but it wasn’t like this, at least a decade ago,” he said.
An analysis of the budgets since 2015 indicates a steady rise, even though the allocation to recurrent expenditure far outweighs capital expenditure. Capital expenditures are used for acquiring assets including military hardware, platforms and other infrastructure; while recurrent expenditure is used for wages, salaries, allowances, and other personnel costs.
Citing rich data from the Budget Office of the Federation, the statistics demonstrate that the first budget for the ministry of defence under Buhari’s administration was N443.1 billion in 2016. Out of this sum, N130.80 was budgeted for capital expenditure. In 2017, the ministry of defence was allocated N465.40 billion, of which N140 billion was for capital expenditure while the rest was for recurrent expenditure.
In 2018, N576.31 billion was allocated to defence and N157.71 billion was set aside for capital expenditure. By 2019, the allocation to defence increased to N589.9 billion, and the operation in the North-East codenamed ‘Lafiya Dole’ (now operation Hadin Kai) got N75 billion, while N159.10 billion was set aside for capital expenditure.
The allocation to defence jumped to N900 billion in 2020 as security threats increased, N116 billion was allocated to capital expenditure, and recurrent expenditure got the lion’s share of N784.6 billion or 88 percent of the total budget. In 2021, the defence ministry got N772.60 billion, while N127.80 billion went to capital expenditure.
The defence budget jumped to N1.2 trillion in 2022 and then N1.248 trillion in 2023, out of which N204.60 billion, and N156.20 billion were budgeted for capital expenditure respectively.
In 2018, Buhari authorised the withdrawal of $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account, out of which $496 million was used to order the 12 Tucano fighter jets.
The President also approved a N982.72 billion 2021 supplementary budget, which was designed for the provision of military hardware and COVID-19 response. The Nigerian government also procured 12 AH-1Z Cobra attack helicopters worth nearly $1 billion.
Some other new platforms acquired by the military are the JF-17 Thunder aircraft, and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The Nigerian Air Force was also said to be expecting the delivery of additional new platforms before the end of the first quarter of 2023. These platforms include two CASA-295 medium airlift aircraft, two Beechcraft King Air 360, 4 Diamond DA-62 surveillance aircraft, three Wing Loong II UCAVs and 6 T-129 ATAK helicopters.
Others are two Agusta 109 Trekker multi-role helicopters, 12 AH-1Z attack helicopters and 24 M-346 attack aircraft.
In the 2023 defence budget, N27.3 billion was budgeted for additional payment for the procurement of six T-129 attack helicopters, N2.7 billion for three units of Magnus MF 212 surveillance attack aircraft and N3 billion for three units of Bell UH 1D helicopter and Ocea3X32 fast patrol boats for the Navy.
Immediare past president, Major General Buhari recently revealed that his administration had invested over $1 billion in the acquisition of weapons, which he said has yielded tremendous results in the war against terror.
This claim is a complete fabrication because even a toddler understands that Nigeria is the deadliest country to grow due to sophisticated crimes of terrorism and kidnappings amongst others that go uninvestigated and the terrorists allowed to roam freely in the streets of Nigeria. Over 2,000 terrorists who escaped from the many derelict prison facilities around Nigeria are yet to be re-arrested and not transparent efforts are made to get them to face the full weight of the law. This iconic full weight of the law is just a paper tiger here in Nigeria whereby many in government become billionaires by aiding and abetting insecurity.
“When I assumed power in 2015, Boko Haram held about two-thirds of Borno State, half of Yobe State, and a couple of local government areas in Adamawa State, all in the North-East of Nigeria. We have been able to retrieve these swathes of territories by investing over a billion dollars to acquire hard and software weaponry from the US and other friendly countries to carry out sustained operations against insurgency since 2015,” Buhari said. Tragically, the Muhammadu Buhari’s led government that passed over power to Tinubu, generously provided the oxygen and the enabling environment for hardened terrorist masterminds of Fulani ethnicity to emerge.
The Defence Headquarters said the military has greatly decimated insurgents and other criminal elements terrorising the country. According to it, the mass surrender of thousands of terrorists is a clear indication that the military is winning the war. But this is a lie from the pit of hell.
However, security experts and analysts said the huge sums invested in security failed to yield the desired results as the country is still mired in a wave of insecurity, which has spread to all geopolitical zones across the country. The security sector has gulped over N12 trillion in the last eight years.
The truth as disclosed in this unique and highly articulate article is that defence budget has been heavily criticised especially as the country continues to perform poorly in global rankings on peace and security.
Reportedly, Nigeria ranks 143rd of the 163 countries ranked in the Global Peace Index for 2022. The country also occupies the sixth position among countries with the highest terrorism levels, according to the 2022 Global Terrorism Index. Statista also said Nigeria is among the countries in the world with the largest number of terror-related deaths.
Meanwhile, within October-December 10, of two years ago, the period in which the federal government promised to end insecurity, security reports by Beacon Consulting, a security consulting firm, and Nextier SPD, indicate that 1,920 persons were killed in over 1,100 violent attacks across the country.
Kabiru Adamu, an expert, maintained that criminal activities including kidnap for ransom, violent and petty crimes, as well as home invasions are likely due to the deteriorating economic circumstances of the country and rising inflation.
To tackle insecurity, Adamu said there is a need for the government at the federal and state levels to halt the ability of the gunmen to move between locations, and to block their supply chains for weapons and essentials including petroleum products for their motorbikes and access to drugs.
I for one, do not share this seemingly shallow reasons for the sophisticated and organised crimes of terrorism, crimes against humanity, mass killings, kidnappings for ransom resulting in massive fatalities even after heavy ransoms are obtained, that are prevalent in Nigeria of 2025.
Also, it surprises me that Nigeria has become a comical spectacle in which the nation has witnessed a spike in violent attacks even when the annual budgetary releases for national security and the defence sector have increased both mathematically and astronomically.
There are two reasons which are actually one that may inform why insecurity has become like a hydraheaded monster: corruption, lack of accountability and transparency in the defence budgeting procedures and it is becoming clearer by the day that many top flight officers within and without the military, are reaping lots of profits from the growing insecurity, hence the constant and continuous spikes in the attacks unleashed on Nigerian public space by terrorists.
The lack of accountability, transparency and high levels of procurement corruption in the budgeting processes of the defence sector and the failed/compromised oversight capacity of the National Assembly, are the twin evils that are responsible for massive insecurity even amidst massive budgets for the defence sector. President Bola Tinubu should wake up, give matching order to his commanders with a deadline to end terrorists attacks in Nigeria just as failure should be viewed as dereliction of duty on the part of the service chiefs. The idea that the President is always looking behind his shoulders and lives in fear of the uncertainty of power in Nigeria, must be vanished. Let the bad eggs be uprooted from the military and cast away and the heavens wouldn’t fall with the comprehensive support of the civil society.
Only Yesterday, a school in Bwari the FCT, was bombed and the police confirmed that those who planted the bomb came from Katsina.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that three men from Katsina had visited the owner of the Islamic school, Mallam Adamu Ashimu. The three visitors are suspected of having brought the explosive device with them. Tragically, two of the men died in the explosion while tampering with the improvised explosive device on the school Veranda, while the third man and a female trader sustained severe injuries and are currently receiving treatment under police guard.”
The Chairman of Bwari Area Council, John Gabaya, had earlier confirmed the death of one person, following the explosion.
In a telephone conversation with our correspondent, Gabaya had said three other persons, including a seller of a local snack, were injured as a result of the explosion.
“At the scene there, one person died. That one was confirmed dead. The three other persons were rushed to the hospital. They were four; then there was one other girl who was selling awara (local snack). There is something they eat, this almajiri food. So, in the process of doing that, the thing exploded, and she was close, so it wounded her also. They took the three of them to the hospital,” he said.
He also said he had ordered the Divisional Police Officer to interrogate a certain Mallam, after some children whom he brought from Katsina to the school a few days before were also affected by the explosion.
“The mallam said he was the one who brought them. I asked the DPO to take him immediately, so they can interrogate him,” Gabaya said. The FCT command of the police needs to do more in the area of preventive measures of policing than to wait until a crime occurs before rushing to the media to offer excuses.
On August 24th, 2023, Hope Williams, Adedeji Adeniran, and Aloysius Uche Ordu penned a report for the Brookings institute and offered profound panacea to the single most important cause of continuous insecurity in Nigeria even when the nation purportedly spends more on national security or defence sector.
Hear them: “For several decades, Nigeria, Africa’s economic giant, has struggled with corruption, especially in relation to public procurement at the federal, state, and municipal/local levels of government.
“In 2022, Nigeria obtained 24 out of a possible 100 points in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). This is the same score as the Central African Republic, Guatemala, and Tajikistan and well below the global average of 43 out of 100.
“Corruption impedes the functioning of the public sector and the economy with a debilitating effect on quality of public service delivery. Corruption can also breed political instability and social unrest, which serves extremists and can lead to long-term insecurity. As noted in the CPI report, “corruption undermines governments’ ability to protect people and erodes public trust, provoking more and harder to control security threats.”
“The percentage of GDP that is spent on procurement in Nigeria varies over time, but it is estimated to range from 10-25%. Moreover, of the amount spent on procurement, the Anti-Corruption Agencies of Nigeria (comprising all agencies with mandates to investigate corruption and financial crimes) estimates that Nigeria loses $18 billion every year to corruption and financial crimes. This is a staggering estimate, amounting to 3.8% of Nigeria’s GDP in 2022, and it has severe and adverse implications for pro-poor growth and development.”
These reasons inform why the EFCC and ICPC should continuously be very effective and devoid of partisan politics.
But these two crime fighting institutions have become notorious for been predisposed to be deployed for political fights waged by the powers that be against perceived political opponents of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria who is the sole appointing authority and who has indeed comfortably pocketed the hierarchy of the National Assembly who ought to act as the effective check and balances in the area of public procurement processes in Nigeria.
Who bails the CAT?
***Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA and was NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF NIGERIA *
7th January, 2025.C.E
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