The Socio-economic Rights and Accountability Project, (SERAP) has appealed to the President to urgently set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the spending of defence and military budgets between 1999 and 2018.
In an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, SERAP says the purpose of the investigation is to promote transparency and accountability in the military.
According to the rights group, the probe would ensure that funds meant for military operations are spent for that purpose and end the vulnerability and killings of Nigerian soldiers.
Citing the reported killing of several Nigerian soldiers in the recent Boko Haram attack in Metele village of Borno state, SERAP urged the President to refer all allegations of corruption in the spending of funds meant to purchase arms for Nigerian soldiers to the Internal Criminal Court.
In the letter dated November 23, 2018, SERAP’s Legal Adviser, Bamisope Adeyanju, said: “several billions of naira allocated to the military to defend the country have neither contributed to improving the ability of Nigerian soldiers to fight Boko Haram and other armed groups nor provided the much-needed security especially for Nigerians in the north-east of the country.”
The organisation alleged that the army’s inability to respond adequately to the Boko Haram insurgency suggests a mismanagement in the spending of the country’s defence budgets.
