Borrowing to fight insurgency

Last week President Goodluck Jonathan requested the National Assembly to approve a foreign loan of $1 billion (about N160 billion) specifically for the upgrade of the capability of the Nigerian military, to respond more decisively against security contingencies in the country.This request is coming at the heels of the 2014 Budget which allocated a princely […]

Last week President Goodluck Jonathan requested the National Assembly to approve a foreign loan of $1 billion (about N160 billion) specifically for the upgrade of the capability of the Nigerian military, to respond more decisively against security contingencies in the country.
This request is coming at the heels of the 2014 Budget which allocated a princely sum to the defence sector and by implication the same purpose for which the proposed loan is intended. Besides, the loan proposal fits into a pattern of uncommon favour to the nation’s defence establishment which since 2010 had been allocated an ever increasing and disproportionate share of the nation’s annual budgets.
Given the persistence of the insurgency and the associated losses in life as well as property, the situation demands prompt and decisive response, which the government remains duty bound to adopt any measure to effect. In that context if the regular budgetary allocation to the defence of the country proves inadequate, the loan proposal qualifies as a step in the right direction.
However, the concern over the debt is less over its necessity than its utility. Granted that the nation may need to borrow to contain the ravages of the insurgency and take the military to the next level, experience over the fortunes of past public sector loans raises questions over the circumstances surrounding the new loan proposal. With the joint rating by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund of Nigeria’s debt stock at N10 trillion as at February 2014, a foreign loan of N160 billion at this time, even if it is to fight insurgency, still implies additional stress to the nation’s economy.
The culture of unbridled profligacy and corruption in the management of public funds in Nigeria coupled with an apparent unwillingness of the government to frontally attack the malaise, dampen public faith in the loan proposal. Fresh in the memory of Nigerians was the escape from a historical foreign debt trap, even as the domestic debt overhang is having a severe telling effect on the economy. The new debt proposal actually raises fears of an ignoble return to another foreign debt trap.   
Besides a key revelation from the development is the tacit admission by the government of the debilitating handicaps of the nation’s military in the face of operational contingences as offered by the Boko Haram insurgency, in spite of the budgetary allocation the sector has been availed. The situation is corroborated by the increasing audacity of the insurgents to attack at will and unchallenged by the military, any target of their choice in the country.
It is lamentable that at this stage of Nigeria’s development her defence establishment is depending on foreign assistance and loans to tackle even internal insurgency, when nations with similar start-up circumstances for their military establishments are faring better. The military establishments in countries like Brazil and India, to name a few, are at least self-sufficient in many areas of logistic requirement. This is even as our troops complain endlessly of lack of basic facilities to engage in combat as well as de-motivation and even exploitation by their officers.
None of these problems would disappear by a mere accumulation of additional debt. Nigerians therefore expect the National Assembly to reject the President’s proposal, not only because of his administration’s record of profligacy but also because it is not a proper way of addressing the deficiencies of our military establishment. Even at the putative stage of the loan proposal itself, the public interest has featured in basic questions such as its source, tenor and specific purpose, to name a few.  
Such questions are informed by the contemporary economic circumstance of recession ravaging the likely sources of the loan. It is highly unlikely that the deal will come without the usual conditionalities that have both proximate and remote implications for present and future generations of Nigerians. That is why the National Assembly should reject this loan proposal in line with the expectations of Nigerians. We neither need nor want it.