Yesterday, INFORMATION NIGERIA reported that President Buhari ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to investigate the former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Vice Marshal Alex Badeh and former Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshall Adesola Amosu. As a follow up to that report, we have put together the 7 reasons why Buhari wants them investigated…
1. The investigation is sequel to the recommendation of a committee established to audit the procurement of arms and equipment in the Armed Forces and Defence sector from 2007 to 2015 which indicted the officers in shady deals that involved billions of Naira and United States Dollars.
2. The procured items failed to meet the purposes they were procured for, especially the counter insurgency efforts in the North East.”
3. The procurement processes were arbitrarily carried out and generally characterized by irregularities and fraud.
4. Letters of award and End User Certificates for all the contracts issued by NAF and ONSA respectively did not reflect the contract sums. Rather, these were only found in the vendor’s invoices, all dated 19 March 2015.
5. Some of the award letters contained misleading delivery dates suggesting fraudulent intent in the award process and the observed discrepancies are in clear contravention of extant procurement regulations.
6. NAF arbitrarily bought non recommended helicopters at very exorbitant prices. Besides, the helicopters were not air worthy.
7. Between September 2009 and May 2015, the NAF was said to have spent about N15bn on the maintenance of its Alpha-Jets, C-130H aircraft and Mi-24V/35P helicopters. Out of this amount, Four Billion, Four Hundred and Two Million, Six Hundred and Eighty Seven Thousand, Five Hundred and Sixty Nine Naira, Forty One Kobo (N4,402,687,569.41) was paid out for contracts not executed.
