The Minister of State for Defence, Muhammad Matawalle, yesterday appealed to the House of Representatives Committee on Defence to approve an additional 20 billion naira to enable the family pay families of deceased military personnel.

Matawalle made the request in his presentation at the 2025 budget defence session with the House of Representatives Committee on Defence.

He said: “We have nonpayment and accumulated bills of group life insurance, which is very important, Mr. Chairman, the very important issues that we have is non-payment and accumulated bills of group life insurance for military personnel, which I believe or I requested the committee for consideration of maybe the sum of 20 billion as an additional funds for payment of families of deceased military personnel.

“We have another issue. Mr. Chairman, if you look at the budget of 2024, most of the barracks, the allocation being made is zero.

“How do we expect the personnel of the military to perform while their living standard is inadequate? “All the zones, all the zones, all the provision that we made, the allocation in 2024 is zerr and these are the people that we expect them to perform magic.

For us in the ministry, we have a lot of challenges.” Matawalle, who represented the minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru lamented that “While we look at the budget of 2025, just 50 billion, we have shortfall of 18 billion of the last year’s budget.

And people expect the ministry to do wonders. According to him, “The Ministry of Defence is supposed to provide some equipment for some of the zones but we cannot.”