Reps Criticise Navy Over Acquisition Of Foreign Platform

…Express Dissatisfaction Over the Sack of Haruna Abbas

By Angel Ike

The House of Representatives Committee on Navy has expressed displeasure with the Nigerian Navy for arbitrarily acquiring foreign platforms without its knowledge.

The Committee was piqued that the Navy failed to respond to its letters demanding for documents to facilitate effective oversight of the security agency.

Chairman of the Committee, Yusuf Gagdi, stated this while addressing journalists after a closed door meeting with the leadership of the Navy.

He said, *We cannot say anything now until we have gone to see those projects, the platforms that are being built, then we can come back here, and have another interaction.”

Gagdi also frowned at the Nigerian Navy over the sack of its personnel, Seaman Haruna Abbas, after six years in detention.

Abbas was allegedly held in detention for the period without trial over some disciplinary issues.

The cry of his wife through a popular Abuja radio programme, Brekete Family and Television programme on Human Rights Radio. sparked wide condemnation, leading to his trial and dismissal from service by the Navy.

Gagdi said “We came for an oversight function, you all know every committee has the Constitutional power, so we came to the Navy to ask questions on tax payers’ money, how monies appropriated to the Navy is being spent.

“We came to ask questions on how interventions by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is being spent by the Navy. How the junior officers are being treated by the senior officers, including the famous case of Seaman Haruna, how he was suddenly dismissed. It is our responsibility on behalf of the Nigerian people to ask questions on these pertinent issues.

“Beyond the Seaman Abbas issue, we are not satisfied with the non-response to letters written by this committee, for documents demanded to guide us in our oversight function and so on, and the acquiring foreign platforms without the knowledge of this committee, and so many things.

“We cannot say anything now until we have gone to see those projects, the platforms that are being built, then we can come back here, and have another interaction”.

The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, informed the committee of the several challenged the Navy is facing.

He said such challenges include “inadequate resources to effectively carry out its operations.”

He noted that the Nigeria Navy is the most difficult arm on the operation of the Nigerian Armed Forces, disclosing t that, its areas of operations covers 290,000 Kilometers which he said is one tenth of the nation’s landmass.

Vice Admiral Ogalla, added that beyond its military responsibility, the Navy also performs the function of policing the waterways, complementing the Nigeria Customs which has no deep-sea policing capacity.