The reason why military chiefs across the armed forces snub invitations of the National Assembly (NASS) has been revealed.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reliably gathered via a very competent source that top military brass snub NASS because they get all their intervention funds directly from the presidency.
The source, a top ranking lawmaker from the North Central geo-political zone told TNG that “they don’t really need us to get the funds they need because their funds majorly get to them directly from Aso Rock so they can afford to snub us and go unscathed.
“The fund we appropriate for them is recurrent expenditure which mainly deals with soldiers salaries and you can never toy with that because soldiers must be paid their salaries.
“Even recruitment exercises are funded by the presidency so you don’t even supervise or screen it because they are solely in charge.
“It’s only once in a blue moon you see capital expenditure from the armed forces because in most cases the presidency handles such things.
“We have seen situations here where principal officers summon military chiefs and they just flagrantly disobey NASS.
“Barely four weeks ago we invited them and they were busy organising a talk shop on national security while lawmakers waited here in vain and several others occasions.
“Again, our committees are too many overseeing these armed forces, take a look at the US Congress there are only two Committees overseeing the armed forces and intelligence.
“Here we have Committees supervising, the army, airforce, navy and a committee on defence itself and other committees supervising NIA, DSS and so forth.
“In the US Congress all you have is the Committee on armed forces and interior supervising both the military and intelligence departments.
“Here we have nine committees supervising these agencies so at the end of the day, the Chief of Army Staff, COAS will be supervised separately by the committee on Defence and army.
“Same thing applies to the Navy and Airforce and these security agencies get their funds mainly from the presidency and you expect them to honour you.
“Most of the chiefs relate with our principals directly so they don’t really care what happens at the Committee level”.