Buhari To Spend Another N1trillion To Fight Boko Haram, Bandits In Twilight Of Administration
The government of President Muhammadu Buhari has put aside N1.35 trillion to continue the fight against terrorists and bandits in the nation.
The N20.51 trillion 2023 budget proposal that Buhari gave to the National Assembly on Friday included this.
Findings by PUNCH on Sunday reveal that out of this N1.35tn, the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces have been allotted approximately N1.248tn to fight Boko Haram, bandits and other anti-insurgency wars in the 2023 Appropriation Bill.
Out of this sum, personnel spending will devour over N1tn; overhead cost, N90.961bn; and capital expenditure, N156.294bn.
The Nigerian Army, Air Force, and Navy will each receive N638.1b, N174.4b, and N158.7b of the total amount allotted to the 18 military and defense departments. The three forces got the largest chunk of the record military budget.
Out of the Nigerian Army’s N638.1bn budget, N581bn is for payment of salaries of personnel, N24.6bn was allocated for overhead and N32.3bn for capital.
The Nigerian Air Force on the other hand allocated N108. 3bn for personnel cost, N15.4bn for overhead and N50.6bn for capital projects.
For the Nigerian Navy, N113.7bn will go to personnel cost, N19.7bn to overhead and N25.3bn for capital.
The Defence Headquarters, Abuja, has a budget of N84.7bn, out of which N80.086bn is for personnel, N2.1bn for overhead and N2.4bn for capital.
Similarly, the sum of N1,096,456,345 has been appropriated for the prosecution of Boko Haram and terrorism-related cases in 2023, an analysis of the 2023 appropriation budget revealed.
The figure is contained in the breakdown of the 2023 budget of the Ministry of Justice.
Described as a “new” project in the budget, the allocation is to be expended on fresh terrorism and other criminal cases filed in court by the ministry.
