$1bn arms fund: Fayose ignorant of Buhari’s motives – Labo

A retired military officer, Col. Hassan Labo has said Governor Ayodele Fayose is ignorant of why President Muhammadu Buhari approved the sum of $1billion for the purchase of military equipment.

The ex-military personnel said this on Thursday during his appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

DAILY POST recalls that President Buhari had approved the fund during a meeting with the Minister of Defence, Brigadier General Mansur Dan-Ali (rtd), and the service chiefs on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. .

Governor Fayose, on his part, alleged that the approval was a clever move by the All Progressives Congress (APC) led government to raise funds to finance the 2019 presidential election and the July 14 governorship poll in Ekiti.

Reacting to the governor’s comment, Labo said, “I just listened to His Excellency, Governor Ayo Fayose and with due respect, I want to say His Excellency is speaking from a position of ignorance.

“How do I mean? This money, to start with, is going to help in enhancing the procurement deficit we have presently (which has existed) for quite some while now because we’ve never taken the pain to allot adequately to the military.”

“The military has always been short-changed at the point of statutory appropriation – that is to say in the Congress (National Assembly) – such that at the end of the day, there is no single pin that you buy in the military that is produced in this country, we import nearly everything,” he explained.

Amid the insecurity issues in the country, including the Boko Haram insurgency and herdsmen attacks in parts of the country, the retired colonel noted that Nigeria can afford to use and should use such huge sum of money for security.

He further reminded Nigerians that the fund was not just meant for the fight against insurgency in the North East, but also to tackle other insecurity challenges in the country.

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