Arms Deals Probe: President Buhari’s Panel Starts Working

The investigative panel investigating the purchase of weapons for the Nigerian Armed Forces has commenced its sitting.

According to The Punch, the committee met in the office of Babagana Monguno, the national security adviser on August 26, Wednesday.

The source said: “I can confirm to you that the committee members have started meeting. They even started meeting before their appointments were announced. This is because they do not need any confirmation or any formal inauguration.

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“Available information showed that members are getting the needed assistance and support from interested parties.

“It is the government’s belief that a lot of ground would be covered by the committee in its desire to ascertain what went wrong in the past as far as the procurement of arms is concerned.”

Femi Adesina, the presidential spokesman, had on Monday announced the structure of the panel, which is saddled with the duty of investigating arms procurement from 2007 till now.

South Africa has said that it is not engaged in the probe of the arms deals by the governments of late president Umaru Yar’Adua and ex-president Goodluck Jonathan.

It described the arms probe panel as a Nigerian affair, saying it did not engage in the terminated botched $15m arms deal by the Jonathan government in 2014.

Lulu Mnguni, South Africa’s high commissioner in Nigeria, noted this on Wednesday.

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He said: “We don’t know anything about the arms issue; that is a Nigerian matter. We are not involved. You know what, we are guided by our government and you must also know that we are in the diplomatic community.”

The Nigerian army has struggled to get weapons since the US blocked the sale of helicopter gunships over allegations that Nigeria’s military had committed human rights abuses. Nigeria abruptly ended a US mission to train its troops to fight Boko Haram in December.

However, there are signs that the United States government has started sending arms to the Nigerian military in its efforts to crush Boko Haram after President Buhari’s meeting with his American counterpart, Barack Obama.

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Arms Deals Probe: President Buhari’s Panel Starts Working