You want to borrow $1 billion, What have you done with $5.8 billion in 3 yrs

The president had in a letter sent on Tuesday,  July 15, 2014 and addressed to the Senate President, David Mark, said the need for external borrowing was to enable the upgrade of security equipment in order to fight the Boko Haram insurgency. He also said the money would be used to train the military and other security officers.

Opinions have been divergent since the president’s letter was read on the floor of the upper legislative chamber: with many saying the move was a step in the right direction if the country intends to make a head way in the fight against the insurgents responsible for the cruel deaths of thousands of innocent Nigerians and have sacked several villages in the northeast; while others disagreed, noting that, the huge amount invested so far in the military was yet to be reciprocated.

The Minority Leader of House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila had said the Federal Government should explore trade by barter option (exchanging oil for military hardware) like other needy countries have done in the past if truly Nigeria has weak military equipment considering the country’s previous budgets for Defense and train military personnel instead of piling up debts for the country.

He said the request for $1 billion loan by the president after N3trillion allocated to Defense in three years with nothing to show for it, showed that the president and his advisers regarded Nigerians as imbeciles.

Former Military Head of State and All Progressives Congress (APC’s) national leader, Muhamadu Buhari who recently survived bomb attack targeted at his convey in Kaduna, had also queried what the military were doing with trillions of naira ($5.8 billion) allocated to it in the 2014 budget if they can’t equip the military, saying “you can’t have a developing country of this size with an incompetent military”. - businessdayonline.com