Army Chief, IG seek more funding for military, police operations

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, and the acting Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, yesterday urged the National Assembly to approve more funding to enable the military and the police to combat insecurity.

While the army chief met with a Senate committee, the IG met with the leadership of the House of Representatives.

Attahiru, while receiving the Senate Committee on Army in his office, said the support of the lawmakers was needed assist the military to defeat all security threats.

The army chief said Nigeria was faced with a lot of security challenges that include insurgency in the north-east, banditry in the north-west and parts of north-central, as well as secessionist agitations in the south-east.

“To curb and finally defeat these threats, the Nigerian army requires equipment, weapons, armour fighting vehicles, platforms, and various combat enablers,” he said.

“I urge you to, as a matter of urgency, consider these critical needs as you legislate and appropriate funds.

“I will be counting on your support, so that we can efficiently perform our constitutional roles and defeat all our threats.”

Meanwhile, the acting IG, Baba has told the leadership of the House of Representatives that the Nigeria Police Force lacks adequate resources to face the emerging security challenges in the country.

Baba, who visited the lawmakers, urged the House to create a special fund for police operations which will allow the security outfit to respond to emergency needs.

Baba said, “In the area of funding, we are requiring and requesting your assistance to look more into our predicament. We are glaringly underfunded and there is nothing we can do without funds. I agree that you may not get what you want even in your house completely; you have to manage.”

We are managing what we have.

“One of the most essential things that I want to plead for the House of Representatives to look into is the area of funds for operations. Sincerely speaking, day in day out, besides what we have as allocation, we have problems coming up year in year out and we don’t have any account we can go to, to dip our hand in and do a quick deployment in terms of mitigating or proactively stopping what is to come.

“Normally, operations should have a fund that you can quickly deploy men and material in areas, whether it is a natural crisis or it is a man-made crisis. The police don’t have that at all. We always rely on our budgetary allocation which is not enough.”

Earlier, Baba hailed the House for the timely passage of the Police Act (Amendment) Bill 2020 “unlike when bills have stayed in this House for years without seeing the light of the day.” (THISDAY)