Boko Haram: Rights activists advocate endowment funds to end insurgency


Two rights lawyers, Barristers Ugochukwu Osuagwu, and Charles Ogboli, Esq have advocated the establishment of endowment funds to enable the military prosecute the war against insurgents to its logical conclusion.
In a statement on Sunday, the lawyers said the government alone cannot shoulder the financial needs of the military in the fight against insurgents adding that service chiefs should be supported to finish off the final lap of the battle against Boko Haram . 
The duo also pledged the sum of N100,000 to support the troops as soon as the presidency establishes this endowment fund. 


They said, “We also suggest that funds be raised to support the Army, Navy and AIR FORCE to enable them to clear up the remaining insurgents. Hence we suggest an endowment fund be created to enable Nigerians donate to support our Military financially. It should not be Government alone. On our part, we shall be pledging N100,000 to support the troops in the war front as soon as the Presidency establishes this endowment fund.”

They argued that “If Nigeria wants an end to insurgency, then the war must be comprehensive; it must be approached from all ends as was done with the Ebola calamity, urging the members of public to desist from retirement campaigns against the service chiefs.  .They also noted that “this is the wrong time to ask military operatives to disengage because they have passed the age specified for certain grades. We are certainly in an emergency when things cannot be done as in normal times; instead, the military should be expanded because we lose nothing having hundreds of generals in the military until the war ends.”


According to them, all ex-military personnel who are still agile ought to be recalled to the battle-front in line with the saying that once a general always a general.
The two lawyers noted that the war against the insurgents should not be left for the military alone, calling for the inclusion of the Civil authorities, the Police,States Security Services, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) etc to man all recovered territories rather than leaving them fallow for future attacks. 


They said, “all citizens particularly those in affected areas must be mobilized through non-stop public enlightenment strategies which dwell on the evils of waging wars against the fatherland. This would hopefully dissuade new entrants into insurgency just as it could propel everyone to become the conscience of the nation. 
“Thus, no one should envy the military for attracting huge subventions for a capital-intensive-venture. It is not enough for legislators to deprecate the trillions of naira that have allegedly gone to the military in a number of years without showing us how such trillions were misappropriated.”

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