Five former chief of army staff's children paid N2bn from funds meant for military vehicles

ANTI-corruption officials investigating graft within the military have discovered that five children of a former chief of army staff were paid N2bn (£4.78m) that was earmarked for the purchase of defence vehicles.

 

Since assuming office on May last year, President Muhammadu Buhari has made the fight against corruption his main priority, paying particular attention to graft within the military. Investigations have revealed that one of the reasons why Boko Haram was so successful was because money meant to purchase military hardware was diverted to private pockets.

 

To examine this claims, President Buhari inuagurated a Presidential Committee on Audit of Defence Equipment Procurement. It has now traced about N2bn, meant for the purchase of vehicles for the Nigerian Army, to the accounts of five children of a former chief of army staff and subsequently frozen them.

 

Also, the panel discovered that about 42 units of armoured personnel carriers rejected by Iraq were resold to Nigeria to fight Boko Haram insurgents. It said the poor equipment accounted for the loss of lives and soldiers in the northeast of the country.

 

A panel spokesman said: “The committee reviewed the procurement carried out by Chok Ventures and Integrated Equipment Service and two companies that shared the same registered office, had one name as common controlling shareholder and sole or mandatory signatory to the various banks accounts of the companies. The committee further established that between March 2011 and December 2013, the two companies exclusively procured various types of Toyota and Mitsubishi vehicles worth over N2, 000,000,000.00 for the Nigerian Army without any competitive bidding.

 

“Most of the contracts awarded to the companies were also split, awarded on the same date or within a short space of time at costs and mobilisation higher than the prescribed thresholds. For instance, on February 13 and 15, the two companies were awarded contracts worth N260,000,000 and N315,000,000 respectively for supplies of various vehicles."

 

He added that the Nigerian Army could not justify the exclusive selection of these vendors against other renowned distributors of same brands of vehicles procured. In addition, the committee found no credible evidence of delivery of the vehicles by the two companies as there were no receipt vouchers but only unauthenticated delivery notes, invoices and waybills that were purportedly used for the deliveries.