For several hours on Thursday, the Senate met Nigeria’s service chiefs behind closed doors to find lasting solutions to the spate of insecurity in the country.
The Senate had on Tuesday invited the service chiefs following a motion that draws the attention to the takeover of communities in Niger State, few kilometers from capital, Abuja.
Addressing the service chiefs, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, attributed the poor performance of the military in the fight against insurgency to “limited resources’.
He said the National Assembly is aware of the constraints and will ensure more resources are made available to enable them prosecute the war.
The Senate President had before now pushed strongly for a supplementary budget for the military.
Earlier in the week, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, told the Senate Committee on Army that her ministry had released over 1 trillion naira to the military in two years between 2019-2021.
She added, “in 2021 the total budget for the Nigerian Army is N29 billion. As of April, the ministry has released n17.98 billion which represent 68.92% and the ministry is on course to release 100%.”
Present at the meeting are Yusuf Bichi, the Director-General, National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Rufai Abubakar, and the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali.
Others are the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, the Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant-General Ibrahim Attahiru, the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo, and the Chief Of Air Staff ` Air Marshal Marshal Oladayo Amoo.