THE CAN OF WORMS IN NIGERIAN SECURITY.

Once again, thank God the times are hard, if not last week's order by President Buhari asking the agents of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to go after some serving and retired officers would have been unthinkable.
One, because affected were top security and military top brass and two, because someone has been forced to turn a blind eye to espirit de corps. Equally important was that the order brings defence spending and contracting under public scrutiny thus risking any attendant consequences.
However, it was an order given for real. According to the President's  Senior special assistant on Media, Garba Shehu, the order was a follow up to the second report by the audit committee set up to examine arms and equipment procurement for the military between 2007 and 2015.
In this particular report, says Shehu in an online press release, 17 top ranking retired and serving officers of the Air Forces , about 10 individuals and eleven companies were indicted for gross abuse of the Public Procurement Act, shady awards of contracts and poor performance of the mostly bloated contracts.
Identified breaches include absence of contract agreements, award of contracts beyond authority thresholds, award of contracts to companies in which officers had personal interest and public fund transfer for unidentified purposes.
Equally worrisome was the deliberate delivery of substandard equipment or short supply of much needed equipment needed by the Nigerian Air Force for the campaign against insurgency in the north.
Indicted were very many recently retired Air Force Officers including Air Chief Marshal A. S. Baden, Air Marshals M. D Umar and A. N. Mosu.
Also indicted were retired AVMs I A Balogun, AG Tsakr, A G Idowu, A M Many, O T Oguntoyinbo. J. B Adigun, R A Ojuamo and Kayode-Beckley.
The list of indicted serving or retired officers also includes six Air Commodores, Col N Ashinze and retired Lt Col M S Dasuki, the National Security Adviser to immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan.
As the audit continues and EFCC operatives get to work, one major question yet to be answered is if then President Jonathan was party to all these?
If he was not, a more fundamental question follows: how much of the rot now unfolding in the nations security was a by product of a deliberate agenda to undermine the war against insurgency in the North?
Obviously, whatever these men did will amount to less if it was done purely for the money but if it was done for other reasons, then the work Nigeria has to do on it's security outfit and loyalty has just started.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2018: TWO BLOWS TO UNITED CAPITAL PLC.

When a child who in a previous examination scored 80%, comes home with a new report in which he now scores 67.2%, the parents have a right to sit him down and ask how come. So it must be between Nigeria's United Capital Plc and its discerning shareholders since the release of the company's 2018 audited figures. In 2018, all said and done, says the annual report, United Capital ended with 67.2 % profit margin compared to 80.2% in 2017. How come? What comes across from the figures was that the company received 2 blows to the jugular in 2018: Sharp drops in Investment income and fair value gain. Investment income dropped by 10.8% to N4422.8m from N4965.2m while fair value on financial assets plunged by 79.7% to N6.173m from 2017's N30.387m. In view of both drops, the group's gross earnings grew by only 33.9% to N9259.4m despite strong growths in net trading income, and net operating income leap to N757.5m from N143.5m  Other income streams ended with single digit increase....
Read more

KENYA AUCTIONS Ksh 13.84bn Treasury Bonds.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) will from Tuesday December 18 to 27th 2018_ auction Ksh 13.84bn worth of fixed income Treasury Bonds with issue date December 17, 2018. According to official statement from the Director of Financial Markets Irene Njiru on Monday December 17, auction will continue throughout the stated period or close once the target money to be raised is reached, whichever comes first. Bid value will be paid for at most by 2pm December 31, 2018 while auction results will be made public on December 28, 2018 after the scheduled closing date. The bonds are being issued at 12.502% fixed interest at an adjusted average price of Ksh 100.468 for Ksh 100 bond. However, price payable after auction results publication will be average of successful bid prices based and allotment will be on first come first served basis. Meanwhile, the monetary operations and debt management department has released the interest payment schedule for 13 Treasury Bonds due January and February 2019. Th...
Read more

NAIROBI SE's HIGH PRICED EQUITIES.

In the wake of Nigeria's high priced quoted companies posted in this blog a while ago, Henates took a look to at Nairobi Securities Exchange June 23 official list to identify its high priced equities and the outcome was interesting too. Of the 66 companies quoted on the market by June 23, 15 or 22.7% were valued averagely at above 30 times nominal value. A word of caution though: There are two clear differences between the Nigerian stock market list and that of Nairobi: In the Nigerian one most listed companies have par or nominal value of N0.50 as is there is an implied agreement on this. On the other hand, at Nairobi most of the equities do not share common par value, they differ greatly. Then another thing, Nigerian equities are not valued below par, Nairobi ones can and many are so valued. Of the top 15 high priced equities at the Nairobi market, Safaricom topped with because by June 23, at 23.25 Ksh average price, it was valued 465 times its nominal value of just 0.0...
Read more