Minister cites rising inflation, begs for increase in defence budget

Abubakar Badaru, the Minister of Defence, recently appealed for an increase in the ministry’s 2024 budget due to the rising cost of operations caused by inflation. Speaking at the 2024 budget defence before the joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on defence, Mr Badaru noted that the 2024 budget allocates N78.5 billion to the ministry for personnel and overhead costs, which is an increase over the N62.9 billion allocated in 2023. However, he pointed out that the rising cost of fuel and other essential items has almost made the increase useless.

Mr Badaru urged the distinguished senators and honourable members to review the ministry’s budget given the prevailing economic situation to enable it to function effectively. He explained that the ministry’s overhead is very low and appealed to the lawmakers to support it to see how it can improve its overhead. He specifically mentioned the heads of brigades, who consume a lot of fuel and diesel, and requested that this be looked into.

The minister further revealed that the ministry had yet to access the N10 billion allocation in the 2023 supplementary budget. He stressed that funding was essential to ensure simultaneous operations across all theatres of operation and to end the country’s security challenges at once.

Responding to questions on the current war against security challenges in the country, the minister assured lawmakers that the war would end. He proposed a closed-door meeting in 2024 to discuss military operations and challenges.

However, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Defence, Sen. Ahmad Lawan, queried the minister for restricting the budget defence to the ministry headquarters alone. He pointed out that the minister is supposed to have a grip on everything and work for the entire Ministry of Defence ecosystem, including all services and agencies. He insisted that they need to see how they can work with the executive to address this kind of anomaly. He also assured of addressing the problem of funding for the ministry but insisted on value for money.