Arms probe: Army chief tells Reps to invite those responsible for procurement

The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt General Ibrahim Attahiru, has called on the House of Representatives to invite specific individuals and agencies responsible for the purchase of arms for the Nigerian army.

He gave the advice on Monday when he appeared before the House Adhoc Committee probing the purchase of arms for the Nigerian military and other security agencies in the last 10 years.

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In his presentation before the committee, the COAS argued that the documents presented to the committee explained what the committee wants as specified in their correspondence with the office.

“The submission before you speaks to the report before. It is an executive summary.

“Issues of procurement that you demand to get to know, were run by specific individuals.

“I would rather prefer you call these individuals what I explained to you very specific issues.

“The general issues have been contained in the report and the executive summary is so contained. It goes to speak about the entire report and explains it,” he added.

On his part, the Police Deputy Inspector General in charge of operations, Sanusi Lemu, informed the committee that the Ministry of Police Affairs and the office of the National Security Adviser were the ones that procure arms and ammunition for the Nigerian police.

Lemu, who represented the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Alkali Baba, further informed that most of the documents requested by the committee from the Police are not their responsibility which explained their inability to tender the documents.

According to him, the Ministry of Police Affairs is the one responsible to present records of all arms procurement for the police as well as contractors working with the Police.

“The Ministry does our purchases through their budget for the police. The Ministry of Police Affairs handles the purchases. The Police as an organisation doesn’t engage in any purchase.

“The Ministry liaise with the Office of the National Security Adviser to handle this.

“When they make their purchases, they present it to the Nigeria Police force.

“My department which is Operations is concerned with distributing them to police formations across the country,” he said.