The inability of the Federal Government to continuously fund the Presidential Arms Procurement Committee, chaired by Air Vice Marshall John Ode (rtd.) was the reason behind the dissolution of the committee, a top Presidency source has said

The committee, which was constituted by the National Security Adviser (NSA) Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd.), in October 2016, was said to have gulped a whopping N600 million before it was recently dissolved.

The top Presidency source that spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the Federal Government could no longer continue to spend money on a committee that was unwilling to end its work. “Government paid members of the committee N2 million monthly in addition to other perks. In the 18 months the committee sat, the Federal Government spent well over N600 million for payment of alliances and other ancillary services. The government cannot continue to spend this amount of money on just one committee that refused to conclude its work,” the source said.

He disclosed that following the disbandment of the committee, the government handed over its work to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). “Some of the committee members were enjoying the privileges and became reluctant to end the committee’s work. We cannot continue to fund this project; whatever anybody is saying does not make any sense,” the source said.

The committee, which sat 13 months outside its 90 days time frame, was mandated to, among other things, investigate arms procurement contracts in the office of the NSA during the regime of the immediate past administration.

“The government could no longer continue to fund people who were not ready to conclude their work as specified by the terms of reference. They veered off their core mandate and started investigating top retired air force officers purely to smear their names and government could no longer fund that individual agenda,” a top security source said.

The establishment of the committee, the source said, “was done with sincere purposes but we didn’t know that some of the committee members would go all out to use it to settle personal vendetta by going after respected retired top air force chiefs including three retired chiefs of air staff, just to smear their names.”