Economics
Nigeria's $5.5-Billion Arms Scandal Tests Buhari's War on Graft
- President Buhari has pledged to make graft-fight top priority
- Buhari estimates 10 percent of Nigeria's oil output is stolen
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Revelations that top officials are suspected of pilfering the equivalent of almost the entire annual defense budget would cause shock waves in most countries. Not in Nigeria, where the public sees political power and graft as bedfellows.
The novelty this time is that President Muhammadu Buhari immediately ordered the arrest of a former national security adviser, after a government commission found that he and other officials allegedly misappropriated as much as $5.5 billion that was supposed to buy equipment to fight Islamist militant group Boko Haram.