ahlam1399
07-15-2016, 04:39 AM
LAGOS: There has been ** shortage of praise for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war, which has led to the arrest of a string of high-ranking former government officials.
The *****down centres on an alleged $2.1 billion “arms scam”, where money earmarked for ******* to fight Boko Haram is said to have been diverted for political purposes.
But experts say the arrests and ongoing trials do little to tackle systemic corruption in the defence sector that helped allow the Islamists to seize swathes of territory in the country’s **rtheast.
Former national security advisor Sambo Dasuki is accused of overseeing a sprawling embezzlement scheme that saw “phantom contracts” awarded for personal gain, as under-equipped and demoralised troops fought better-armed militants.
But Dasuki’s trials have a narrow focus: whether defence money was diverted to former president Goodluck Jonathan’s party to fund his failed 2015 re-election campaign.
Campaigners say **ne addresses the companies behind the procurement deals or the lack of oversight that makes the sector ripe for fraud, leaving the door open to future arms scams.
“The major issues within the defence sector have **t really been sorted,” Eleo**re Vidal de la Blache, from Transparency International’s Africa defence and security programme, told AFP.
“Just because you prosecuted a few rotten apples it doesn’t mean that you’ve massively transformed the sector.”
Shielded by a secretive status quo, corruption thrived while Boko Haram tore through Nigeria in 2014, capturing territory the size of Belgium and killing over 2,500 people -- one of the most bloody years of the insurgency, according to Human Rights Watch.
Nnamdi Obasi, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the problem was “particularly serious” in the defence sector as national security is invoked to prevent scrutiny.
“That, coupled with very poor leadership, administration and oversight, left the system to deteriorate to an unprecedented depth,” he added.
In this murky environment, shady arms deals conducted with military merchants around the globe thrived.
One company singled out by Buhari’s presidential committee probing arms deals is Societe D’Equipements Internationaux (SEI), which has ******s in Abuja and Paris.
Between January 2014 and February 2015, the presidency alleges Dasuki awarded SEI contracts worth $930,500,690 but the company failed to deliver operational equipment -- if it arrived at all.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/World-TheNewsInternational/~4/EgBU5my-dUs
أكثر... (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/World-TheNewsInternational/~3/EgBU5my-dUs/135001-Nigerias-anti-graft-war-only-scratches-surfaces)
The *****down centres on an alleged $2.1 billion “arms scam”, where money earmarked for ******* to fight Boko Haram is said to have been diverted for political purposes.
But experts say the arrests and ongoing trials do little to tackle systemic corruption in the defence sector that helped allow the Islamists to seize swathes of territory in the country’s **rtheast.
Former national security advisor Sambo Dasuki is accused of overseeing a sprawling embezzlement scheme that saw “phantom contracts” awarded for personal gain, as under-equipped and demoralised troops fought better-armed militants.
But Dasuki’s trials have a narrow focus: whether defence money was diverted to former president Goodluck Jonathan’s party to fund his failed 2015 re-election campaign.
Campaigners say **ne addresses the companies behind the procurement deals or the lack of oversight that makes the sector ripe for fraud, leaving the door open to future arms scams.
“The major issues within the defence sector have **t really been sorted,” Eleo**re Vidal de la Blache, from Transparency International’s Africa defence and security programme, told AFP.
“Just because you prosecuted a few rotten apples it doesn’t mean that you’ve massively transformed the sector.”
Shielded by a secretive status quo, corruption thrived while Boko Haram tore through Nigeria in 2014, capturing territory the size of Belgium and killing over 2,500 people -- one of the most bloody years of the insurgency, according to Human Rights Watch.
Nnamdi Obasi, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the problem was “particularly serious” in the defence sector as national security is invoked to prevent scrutiny.
“That, coupled with very poor leadership, administration and oversight, left the system to deteriorate to an unprecedented depth,” he added.
In this murky environment, shady arms deals conducted with military merchants around the globe thrived.
One company singled out by Buhari’s presidential committee probing arms deals is Societe D’Equipements Internationaux (SEI), which has ******s in Abuja and Paris.
Between January 2014 and February 2015, the presidency alleges Dasuki awarded SEI contracts worth $930,500,690 but the company failed to deliver operational equipment -- if it arrived at all.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/World-TheNewsInternational/~4/EgBU5my-dUs
أكثر... (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/World-TheNewsInternational/~3/EgBU5my-dUs/135001-Nigerias-anti-graft-war-only-scratches-surfaces)