The Federal Government has spent at least N63.6 billion on military equipment and ammunition between January and July 2024, according to a report by Saturday PUNCH.
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The Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, revealed that the military requires 200 million rounds of ammunition annually, which would cost the government at least $2 per round.
Matawalle also blamed past governments for the nation’s failure to achieve self-sufficiency in defence production.
The report also showed that the government spent N231.27 billion on arms and ammunition procurement between 2020 and 2023.
The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, justified the huge arms procurement budgets, saying that ammunition expenditure should not be seen as huge because it is spent in dollars.
However, a professor of Criminology and Crime Control/Security Studies, Sigismund Akinbulumo, argued that the Nigerian military and police should revamp the country’s security architecture to curb the rising spate of terror attacks, killings, and kidnappings.
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