APC said it is a shame that while the Minister of State for Defence Musiliu Obanikoro has been prancing around in Ekiti and Osun state marshaling troops to harass the opposition during the elections in those states, Nigeria has been losing territory after territory to Boko Haram.

Equally worrisome, the party said, is the development that has seen some defence chiefs Chief become the chief campaign managers to President Jonathan, an action that is a clear violation of the military’s professional ethics and which has embroiled the military unnecessarily in politics, at a time they should be rallying the troops against Boko Haram.

”Nigeria has never had it so bad. The country’s military that was being hailed worldwide for its sterling performance at global peacekeeping missions has now reached a level where its troops are deserting, engaging in mutiny or simply unwilling to fight.

”There is no way to spin what happened on Monday, when 480 Nigerian soldiers escaped to Cameroon. The Ministry of Defence called it ‘tactical manoeuvre’, but did not explain how soldiers fighting insurgents along Nigeria’s border with Cameroon will foray 80 kilometres into Cameroon! Also, if the Nigerian troops’ foray into Cameroon was in the spirit of the cooperation between the two countries in the fight against the terrorists, as some spin doctors have said, why were the Nigerian soldiers disarmed and then herded into schools in Maroua, 80kms from the Nigerian border?

”The issue that should agitate the minds of Nigerians now is whether our troops are adequately equipped to battle Boko Haram and, if not, what has happened to the funds allocated for such in the past. As we said in our earlier comments on this issue, between 2010 and 2014, a total of US$14 billion was allocated for defence, security and the police. What has happened to these funds?

”Nigerians must start asking questions rather than just blaming soldiers. Nigerians must ask why the alarm raised by Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno concerning the low morale and lack of necessary fighting equipment by the military was dismissed on the altar of partisanship. Nigerians must ask what next, if a rag tag band of marauders are now carving out territories for themselves in our nation. Things cannot and must not continue like this,” APC said.