Nigeria’s military is underfunded and poorly equipped in its battle to check Boko Haram’s rampaging insurgency, the country’s outgoing chief of defence staff said on Thursday. Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh made the remarks in a valedictory speech to mark his retirement, after President Muhammadu Buhari this month sacked Badeh and the entire military top brass who served under his predecessor, ex-president Goodluck Jonathan.
“I was head of a military that lacked the relevant equipment and motivation to fight an enemy that was invisible and embedded with the local populace,” Badeh said.
“Over the years, the military was neglected and underequipped to ensure the survival of certain regimes, while other regimes, based on advice from some foreign nations, deliberately reduced the size of the military and underfunded it,” he lamented.
