SAUDI SEEKS NIGERIA’S MILITARY COLLABORATION TO FIGHT TERRORISM

 The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is seeking for partnership with Nigeria to fight terrorism. A 7- man delegation from the country’s Ministry of Defence today visited Headquarters Nigerian Air Force to discuss areas of possible collaboration as part of the global efforts to stamp out insurgency and terrorism. 

The delegation was led by the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, Maj Gen Yahya Ahmed Massiri. While commending the Chief of the Air Staff, (CAS) Air Mshl Sadique Abubakar for the successes recorded so far in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency, 

FG TO REOPEN TWO MAJOR ROADS IN BORNO, TODAY

The Federal Government will today formally re-open two major roads in Borno State. They are the Maiduguri-Gubio-Damasak road and the Maiduguri-Mungono-Baga road.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and his counterpart in the Ministry of Defence, Brig.-General Mansir Dan-Ali (Rtd), Service Chiefs, Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State and others will grace the occasion.

After the reopening, the Government Officials and Military Chiefs will have lunch with the gallant troops who crushed the insurgency.

Budget of Recovery and Growth: Part 2: #SaatahBudgetSeries MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

This is the second piece in my 2017 budget analysis series. The first analysis focused on the budget of the State House (which was referred to as the Presidency in previous budgets).

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Today, we will take a look at the budget for the Ministry of Defence. The Ministry of Defence has a total budget of 465,488,229,573. Of this amount, 140,000,000,000 will be the total capital budget while 325,488,229,573 will be the total recurrent budget. The total overhead cost stands at 39,999,500,080 and the total personnel cost is 285,488,729,493.

The Ministry of Defence has 15 agencies under it and they are as follows; Federal Ministry of Defence Headquarters, Defence Headquarters, Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Airforce, Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), National Defence College, Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Nigeria Armed Forces Resettlement Centre-Lagos, Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON), Defence Intelligence School, Defence Intelligence Agency, Defence Missions, Defence Space Agency, and the Military Pension Board.

The “Rehabilitation of National War Museum Umuahia” will cost the Ministry of Defence 55,208,000. This does not look like it has a problem, but it does. This so-called rehabilitation of the National War Museum in Umuahia has been showing up in budgets for a while now and the tags change from “New“ to “Ongoing” once in a while, which is very odd. Firstly, in the 2014 budget, 30,184,902 was set aside for this item and it was tagged as a “New” project. In 2015, the previous government budgeted for it again, and this time it was given a tag of “Ongoing” with a sum of 27,054,330. In the 2016 budget, which happens to be the first budget of this administration, 28,300,848 was budgeted for it and this time around it was given the “New” project tag. This year, the “Rehabilitation” must continue by fire by force, so 55,208,000 has been budgeted for it.

N5.9Million Bribe : AVM Alkali Manu granted N50 million Bail, Fintiri Granted N500 Million bail

AVM Alkali Manu

Justice S. Garba of the FCT High Court today granted bail in the sum of N50million to a former Air Officer Commanding Training and a member of the Committee for Procurement of the Ministry of Defence, AVM Alkali Manu who is being prosecuted by the EFCC over N5.9 Million bribe from contractors with the Nigerian Airforce. Other bail condition include one surety in like sum.

Revealed: IBB, David Mark Stop Gusau From Resigning

Immediately after an online news portal, Saharareporter broke the news on the resignation of the minister of defence, Lt.-Gen Aliyu Gusau, the Presidency and the Ministry of Defence denied the report stating that Gusau still remains the minister in charge of defence.

But the denial notwithstanding, The Punch in a report said it gathered that minister was on his way out of the cabinet of President Goodluck Jonathan but for the pressure mounted on him at the instance of President Jonathan.