The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has been investigating the military industrial complex that denied Nigerian troops war supplies and made billions of naira at the expense of 20,000 Nigerian lives and 3 million refugees.
The probe revealed that a syndicate of senior military officers who were responsible for procuring ammo for the prosecution of the war against terror in the North East betrayed their country and their colleagues at the war front. They awarded fake contracts to themselves and their cronies, under-supplied in the few instances where they bothered to deliver at all, and fattened their pockets. This resulted in a situation where Nigerian soldiers were compelled to face one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world empty-handed. That ironical, uneven match between the government force and the guerrilla fighters favored the better-equipped underdog. Thus, the terrorists decimated and maimed hundreds of our troops. They sacked villages, took women and girls into sex slavery, and hoisted their flags. They declared, at some point, 20,000 square miles of Nigerian soil, a space the size of Belgium, their jihadist caliphate.
Our military capability deficit caused many of our troops to desert the army that abandoned them. Others rid themselves of their uniform and escaped into neighboring countries; a shameful retreat the Nigerian Army minimized as "tactical maneuver." Some who were braver stood their ground and declined to deploy to the war front until they were furnished with modest arms that would make their engagement with the enemy a proper combat. Their refusal to march in lockstep unity to the appointed arena of the decreed suicide was called "mutiny." They were branded cowards. They were arrested, court-martialed and sentenced…to death.
Buratai, obviously, featured in the cast of that top brass that made a fortune by hemorrhaging the rank and file of the Nigerian Army. As Director of Procurement, Defense Headquarters, he was a very relevant player in major purchases conducted in the name of the Nigerian military. The nature of his position domiciled the core routines of arms procurement business in his office. He knew about the cult-like bids, the classified paperwork, and the fast-forward encashment that attends such ‘national security’ transactions. He had such a strategic positioning that is impossible to imagine a scenario in which that protracted season of fraud could have lasted without his passive acquiescence, in the least, or his active participation, at most.
The very fact that Buratai bought those properties during the span of that muted looting riot strengthens the certitude of his participation and profiteering in the arms contract bazaar. Buratai bought his Dubai houses with blood money. The "personal savings" he references have nothing to do with the wage due his rank. The "personal savings" that account for his houses represent the portion of filthy profit he made from the multiple arms procurement scams he was privy to.""----------Unquote Emmanuel Ugwu!
Great theoretical rationale and circumstantial evidence for possible "crime/fraud"; but where's the BEEF? We need hardcore evidence against Gen Buratai: when and how was the money transferred; and source of the money transferred.
Besides, was Buratai breaching the law when he owned foreign properties while in service?
Perhaps those are the relevant QUESTIONS that Buhari should PROMPTLY seek answers to.
Joseph Igietseme
JIGIETSEME@GMAIL.COM
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