Purchase of Arms: COAS tells House C’ttee, seek individuals concerned
By Tom Okpe
Chief of Army Staff, Ibrahim Attahiru has urged the Ad-Hoc Committee of the National House of Representatives to seek individual officers and agencies who were in office before him on arms purchase for the Nigeria Military.
He gave the advice on Monday when he appeared before the House Ad-hoc Committee at the National Assembly Complex, probing the purchase of arms for the Nigerian military and other security agencies in the last 10 years.
The Army Chief who had been invited along the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele twice but never honoured the invitation told the committee that he couldn’t honour the invitation due to exigencies of duties, trying to ensure stability within Nigeria.
When asked to apologise, Attahiru said: “Mr Chairman, you said I offered an explanation, it is as good as an apology. It only tells you the reasons I was here and the reasons are cogent enough, even the blind man knows there are problems of internal security in Nigeria. So, I think it suffices to explain to this Honourable House my inability to be here.
“Now that i have the opportunity, I am before you. I believe we will continue to remain partners in progress and we will continue to work for the Nigerian people.
“The way you work for the Nigerian people is the same way I work for the Nigerian people. I command the Nigerian Army that is also peopled by Nigerians, representatives of every where you come from.”
In his presentation before the committee, the COAS argued that the documents presented to the committee explained what the committee wants as specified in their correspondence with the office.
“The submission before you, speaks to the report, like an executive summary; issues of procurement that you demand to know, were run by specific individuals.
“I would rather prefer you call these individuals; what I explained to you were very specific issues.
The general issues have been contained in the report and the executive summary is so contained. It goes to speak about the entire report and explains it,” he stated.
On his part, the Police Deputy Inspector General in charge of operations, Sanusi Lemu, on behalf of the Inspector-General of Police, Baba Alkali told the committee that the Ministry of Police Affairs and the office of the National Security Adviser were the ones that procure arms and ammunition for the Nigerian police.
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He further stated that most of the documents requested by the committee from the Police are not their responsibility which explained their inability to tender the documents.
According to him, the Ministry of Police Affairs is the one responsible to present records of all arms procurement for the police as well as contractors working with the Police.
“The Ministry does our purchases through their budget for the police. The Ministry of Police Affairs handles the purchases.
The Ministry liaises with the Office of the National Security Adviser to handle this. The Police as an organization does not engage in any purchase,” he added.
