Chibok Girls: CACOL Slams FG Over Moribund Satellites

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, News Monday, May 12th, 2014

…Lambasts Presidency, PDP Over Denial of Abduction

Kayode Adelowokan

The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) has flayed the Federal Government over the uselessness of the country’s two satellites in proving information on the whereabouts of the 274 school girls abducted by the Boko Haram in a Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State.

Non functional CCTV cameras in Abuja

The Director-General of National Space Research Development Agency, Professor Seidu Muhammed, in an interview had claimed that Nigerian satellites cannot track the girls.

The DG who also claimed that the country requires a specialised kind of satellite for intelligence gathering, said that the NigeriaSat-X with 20 metre resolution and NigeriaSat-2 with 2.5 and 5 metre resolution cannot identify a person, hence cannot be used for strategic military operations.

Reacting to NASRDA DG’s claims, the Executive Chairman of CACOL, Comrade Debo Adeniran, described the satellites as huge waste of tax payers’ money.

Adeniran said, “If NigeriaSat-X and NigeriaSat-2 cannot be useful for the protection of the Nigerian people or to enhance the capacity of our security agencies, then to us, they are huge waste of scarce resources and shouldn’t have formed our priority when the government made it so. Of what use is a satellite that is not serving the interest of ordinary Nigerians? Of what use is a satellite that could only be engaged in grandiose project that has no bearing with the security and welfare of the Nigerian citizenry?

“We could be safe to say that the satellite project is fraught with fraudulent underpinning as it is difficult for ordinary Nigerian to verify its efficiency and effectiveness as regards the services for the protection of the Nigerian territory. Because if it is not serving the purpose of intelligence gathering, whose interest are the other services it is rendering benefitting when satellite of other countries could do similar services? Is it Nigeria with a preponderance of poor people that needs such white elephant project in the midst of ravaging poverty?

“They didn’t tell Nigerians all that from the outset; all they said was that it was going to be used for communication and the communication and all other facilities they claimed it could be used for, are epileptic. Of what use would Nigerian people believe the satellite is being put to? It could have been a moribund project that is being disguised as functioning. It might even be a deceit after all.

“The satellite that doesn’t have radio effect to penetrate into the forest cannot be an effective one. What is its essence when it could not provide good radio services, telecommunication services, and internet services? It should be de-orbited and sold and the cost should be returned to the national treasury.”

Meanwhile, the Coalition has lambasted federal government over its denial of the abduction of the school girls.

The anti-corruption group who was reacting to the video clip released by the leader of the Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, showing the abducted girls and the claim by the leader of the insurgents that the only way the group could release the school girls is for the government to release their members in its custody.

He said it is now obvious that Boko Haram actually abducted the schoolgirls. “Their whereabouts is no longer shrouded in secrecy as the wife of the President, Mrs Patience Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Women Leader, Mrs Kema Chikwe would want us to believe that the abduction was framed to smear the government of President Jonathan”, he added.

“It is unfortunate the crops of people we have at the helms of affairs in this country are far detached from the plight of Nigerians. It is better to over-estimate the power of an enemy because enemy springs surprises when they are under-estimated and that is the reason for the proliferation of insurgency in the North-East.

“When Boko Haram caused damages in the remote places, the government underplayed their capacity and even muzzled the media to report the incidents as they were because the FG wouldn’t want any embarrassment from the international communities. It took the governors of those states who are feeling the heat more to reveal that the BH elements are better equipped and better motivated that the Nigerian Army. This couldn’t have been far from the truth if they could overwhelm the JTF and cart away the school children without anyone to accost them. Even few weeks after the abduction, the FG is yet to know the location of the girls not to talk of rescuing them.

“It is so unfortunate that we budget so much for security and defence only for the FG to be brought on its knees by internal aggression. This should be an eye opener that Nigerian Security System is porous and that the defence system would be caught napping should there be external invasion”, Adeniran stated.