On Wednesday night, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) was on Christiane Amanpour’s CNN show. Buhari spoke on the Boko Haram insurgency among others.
Amanpour: Okay General, let me ask you because you’re a former military general: You were ruling the country briefly. Why is it that the Nigerian military today cannot take on Boko Haram and have failed to combat that terrorist organisation?
Buhari: Well this has been made much more clear when the National Assembly attempted to conduct a hearing after the soldiers were giving interviews to foreign media about being sent to the front without proper weapons. The National Assembly attempted to conduct a hearing by getting the budgets approved by the National Assembly over the last three years and inviting the service chiefs to come and tell them [why the] weapons were not procured and sent to the soldiers — and competent leadership. And that hearing was scuttled.
So in short, it’s the misapplication or misappropriation of the resources provided by the government for weapons. That’s why the Nigerian military was unable to defeat Boko Haram.
Amanpour: Okay so now you say you’re a democrat. What do you think you can do to combat Boko Haram and to combat the galloping corruption in your country?
Buhari: Well, Boko Haram, we know how it started. Certainly the Nigerian military that built our reputation internationally for effectiveness, it’s a great embarrassment to them and to the country that they haven’t been able to secure [Nigeria’s] territory of an area of 14 local governments out of 774 local governments.
I believed this problem will not be too difficult for [our] APC government because we know the Nigerian military is competent. It’s a question of making sure the money voted for equipment and training [is] properly utilised.
