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.
