The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) yesterday said the controversial N5.6 billion payment to some ex-Niger Delta militants to guard oil pipelines in the region is a threat to national security.
National publicity secretary of ANPP, Emma Eneukwu said yesterday in a statement that for the Wall Street Journal to break the news last week is a national disgrace. "The fact that this disclosure was first publicized by a foreign news medium is a patent ridicule to the image of our great nation in the comity of nations.
For some time now, Nigeria has been engaged in various vigorous strategies in international public relations and marketing in a bid to gain the world's confidence in our fight against corruption so as to lure them in to invest in the country. But this damning admission of an award of a shady and illegitimate contract without the knowledge of the relevant National Assembly committees overseeing the activities of the NNPC by the Federal Government, has blatantly shown the hypocrisy and ineptitude of this present government to the whole world.
"Furthermore, we believe that this is a threat to our national security because the truth of the matter is that the apparatus of national security has been put into the hands of ex-militants with no proven background in oil-facility security.
The Nigerian Navy, the Police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, are the legitimate government security bodies to whom such monies should be apportioned to; rather, the government has especially left the police in a less than desirable state of welfare and turned to former militants, who already have almost half a billion dollars budgeted to be spent on them in 2012 alone," he said.
Source: allafrica.com
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