Report says Badeh, Alakali killed by top service chiefs to hide corruption in military

A report by Washington-based group, International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), has said that the deaths of a former Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, and that of a former Chief of Administration of the Nigerian Army, Maj.-Gen. Idris Alkali were calculated efforts to keep the corruption in the military from being exposed.

Recall that Alakali was reportedly killed by a gang of protesting youths along Jos-Bauchi Road on September 3 while Badeh was shot dead by unknown gunmen along Keffi-Abuja Road when he was returning from his farm on December 18.

But the report on Friday by ISSA, a non-governmental organisation with a worldwide membership of professionals involved in national and international security and strategic policy, stated that the death of the two soldiers were not just mere coincidences.

The report also stated that top military officers have resorted to assassinating members of an enquiry commission set up by President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate defence procurement from 2007.

It added, “The commission investigating defence procurement from 2007 onwards made significant strides which were initially accepted by the Buhari government, until the scope of the inquiry went beyond the period relating to the former government of President Goodluck Jonathan and began to show corruption patterns extending into officers still serving under President Buhari.”

Read also: How EFCC may have driven Badeh into killers’ hands

“The level of panic among the senior leadership has now reached the point were senior government, military, and national security staff have been attempting to suppress — through assassination and intimidation — the members of the official commission of enquiry established by President Buhari when he first took office, to investigate defence procurement corruption.

“Given the upsurge in momentum by ‘the highest levels of government’ to stop the findings becoming public from the Corruption Commission on Defence Procurement, it is plausible that the attribution of a criminal ‘kidnapping-attempt-gone-wrong’ against the Air Chief Marshal was a convenient excuse to ensure that the victim — Badeh — could not divulge in court the pattern and details of corruption which has grown even more rampant in the current generation of defence leadership.”

The group also said Nigeria was fast losing the war against Boko Haram owing to the massive corruption among top military chiefs appointed by President Buhari.

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