Human rights advocacy group SERAP has urged the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to tell Nigerians why $1bn is needed to fight insurgency. SERAP was reacting to the Nigeria Governors Forum’s approval of the aforementioned sum from the Excess Crude Account to fight terrorism in Nigeria’s troubled Northeast region.
The group wonders why such money is needed when the federal government had told Nigerians that Boko Haram terrorists had been degraded. In a statement on Sunday by its Deputy Director, Timothy Adewale, SERAP regretted that the Buhari administration had not been communicating adequately with Nigerians.
"Nigerians should have some sense of what it is the government is doing in our name, especially against the background of the declaration by the authorities that the anti-insurgency war has ended and the Boko Haram terror group defeated, as well as the unresolved questions on how over $2bn was spent by former Jonathan administration to fight Boko Haram. The government also ought to tell Nigerians whether and how the legal requirements for approving the extra-budgetary allocations were met,” the statement read.
"As a government presumably pursuing a change-agenda, Buhari should do things differently from the Jonathan administration including by proactively engaging the Nigerian people in an honest conversation about the fight against Boko Haram and the use of the public funds so far invested to prosecute it.
"The Nigerian people do not have sufficient information at hand to evaluate, much less influence, the government’s policies, strategies and funding to end Boko Haram insurgency.“Buhari should keep Nigerians up-to-date about what he’s doing to end Boko Haram, including by explaining why $1bn is needed at this time to fight the insurgency.”
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