Army chief blames worsening insecurity on poor funding

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, has attributed the worsening insecurity in the country to poor funding of the Army and other security agencies.

Buratai made this known in Abuja during the 2019 budget defence engagement with the House Committee on Army, chaired by Rimande Shawulu (PDP, Taraba).

He said that the Army has earmarked the sum of N472.8 billion to cover its expenditure for the 2019 fiscal year explaining that a large chunk of the budget would be utilized for counter-insurgency efforts in the North East and to tackle other forms of insecurity in the country.

A sectoral breakdown of the budget showed that N350.5 billion goes into personnel emoluments; N43.6 billion takes care of overhead costs; while N78.5 billion would be used to execute capital projects for the Army in 2019.

The Army boss further informed the lawmakers that the performance of Army’s 2018 budget was 100 percent, but reiterated that funding has remained a major constraint.

“Poor funding has remained a major challenge of the Nigeria Army, especially since the transition to civil rule in 1999.

“In the 2019 fiscal year, the Army has budgeted N472.8 billion, a large percentage of which would be used for counter-insurgency in the North East and to tackle other forms of insecurity in the country,” he said.