Armsgate: Group Faults Calls For COAS, Buratai's Probe 

We at the Nigerians in Diaspora Monitoring Group condemn in totally the recent call by some unpatriotic Nigerians trying to rope in the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Tukur Buratai, in the funds for arms purchase scandal.

It is obvious that those behind this surreptitious moves have the ulterior motive of ridiculing the anti-corruption fight of President Muhammadu Buhari.

It is obvious that the Buratai led military has since taking over, dealt a serious blow to the insurgency with renewed commitment and professionalism. Yet we can not rule out the fact that some unscrupulous elements who have benefitted from the Boko Haram insurgency are not happy with the achievements of the military under General Buratai.

It is our belief that the recent call for the prove of Buratai by the committee established to audit arms and equipment procurement in the military between 2007 and 2015, is merely an indication that corruption is fighting back to ensure a return to the era of business as usual. We call on Nigerians to rise up and condemn any attempt to distract the Buratai led military from finally crushing the Boko Haram insurgents.

The fact that Major General Buratai was the Defence Head Quarters (DHQ) Director of Procurement between 2012 and 2015 without being linked to the arms purchase scandal is a basis for commendation instead of using the same fact in a twisted way to clamour that the investigation carried out by the committees was incomplete.

The claims being made by these people is targeted at casting aspersion on the work of the committee since they are suggesting that it should have included names to satisfy the whims of certain people. They are already preparing the ground work to create loopholes for their sponsors and dragging the Chief of Army Staff into the probe by all means must be one of the schemes to ensure that their paymaster whip up public sentiments against the anti-corruption fight.

We fear that these calls are part of a clandestine plot by Boko Haram sponsors to discourage the army and roll back the recent gains and successes that they have made so far in crushing the extremist insurgents.

The demand by these groups is also an affront to the authority of President Muhammadu Buhari as they are insinuating that the probe he ordered is meant to witch-hunt a particular branch of the military when they claimed that only past and serving Air Force chiefs have been indicted. Must the other branches be indicted just for the sake of creating balance when they have not done anything wrong?

Calls like this make it imperative that Nigerians familiarize themselves with the concept of command structure and approving authorities in the public sector so that mischief makers have lesser chance of misleading people.” It stated.

The Nigerians in Diaspora Monitoring Group also appealed to the Chief of Army Staff not to allow the distractions being thrown his way to negatively affect the war on insurgency but should rather treat it as part of the psychological war that Boko Haram and its sponsors are mounting against the Nigerian state.

The connection between those making these jaundiced calls and the Boko Haram sponsors should be thoroughly investigated with a view to disrupting the propaganda and psychological warfare that they aiming at citizens.

Authorities must also not delay any further in bringing these Boko Haram sponsors to book since neutralizing them is crucial to making the gains of the war on insurgency permanent.

Signed:
Philip Agbese
Coordinator,
Nigerians in Diaspora Monitoring Group
NW4 4BT
The Boroughs, Hendon,
United Kingdom