Present Crop Of Nigeria Army Officers Are not Corrupt – Military Authority

The Nigeria military authority has protested against the allegations by the Transparency International that its men and officers are corrupt, saying that the issue of corruption cannot be traced to the current crop of military officers.

The Defence spokesman, Major General John Enenche, in a statement today, Thursday, described the allegation as untrue because: “a lot has been done to train, boost troops’ morale and procure vital equipment through due process.”

The Transparency International had said earlier in the day, that corruption in the military had weakened the efforts to battle Boko Haram insurgents.

The report of the Transparency International underlined the difficulty of achieving two key promises of President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2015 election campaign: tackling endemic corruption and defeating an insurgency that has claimed over 20,000 lives and displaced millions.

“Corrupt military officials have been able to benefit from the conflict through the creation of fake defense contracts, the proceeds of which are often laundered abroad in the UK, U.S. and elsewhere,” the watchdog said in a statement.

Last year, Nigeria’s vice president said around $15 billion had been stolen from the public purse under the previous government through fraudulent arms procurement deals.

Transparency International said this had left the military “without vital equipment, insufficiently trained, low in morale and under-resourced”.

“This has crippled the Nigerian military in fighting an aggressive ideologically inspired enemy such as Boko Haram,” the watchdog said, pointing to cases of soldiers taking on the militants without ammunition or fuel.

But reacting, the army spokesman said that the military will continue to get better with the right kind of leadership that we have today.

He said that the military, under President Buhari, had recaptured much of the territory claimed by Boko Haram since the conflict began in 2009. But the reclaimed areas are often razed towns or islands of relative safety and highways connecting them to larger cities.

He said that under the Buhari administration, the troops are getting the required training and equipment and will get better.

Sources: Reuters, AI Reports. [myad]