16th July, 2014
President Goodluck Jonathan has sought the approval of the National Assembly to borrow $1 billion (N162bn) to finance the war against insurgency.
Jonathan made the request in a letter to the Senate President, David Mark, entitled: “Tackling Ongoing Security Challenges: Need for Urgent Action”.
The president said that this action was necessary to enable government upgrade equipment, train the armed forces and security services as well as take care of other logistic needs.
“You are no doubt cognisant of the ongoing and serious security challenges which the nation is facing as typified by the Boko Haram terrorist threat.
“I would like to bring to your attention the need to upgrade equipment, training and logistics of our armed forces and security services to enable them more forcefully confront this serious threat.
“For this reason, I seek the concurrence of the National Assembly for external borrowing of not more than $1 billion,” the letter read.
He said that this loan included government to government arrangement in order to effectively carry out the upgrade.
The Federal Government had appropriated N968.1 billion for Defence in the 2014 budget.