The House of Representatives on Wednesday the House resolved to set up an Ad-hoc Committee to carry out an investigation on the abuse and mismanagement of proceeds of Peace Keeping Operations in Nigeria from 2010 to 2022.
The resolution was passed sequel to the adoption of a motion sponsored by Hon. Zakaria Dauda Nyampa.
In his lead debate, Hon. Nyampa observed that peace keeping operations among nations/countries in the world play a vital role in stabilizing fragile nations like Nigeria in view of insurgency, engaging communities, protecting civilians and promoting peace processes to prevent vulnerable regions from becoming terrorist safe havens.
“The House also notes that Peace keeping as defined by the United Nations, “is a way to help countries torn by conflict with a view to creating conditions for sustainable peace Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favor lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battle field deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare/conflict.
“The House is aware that the broader mission of United Nations includes but not Iimited to peace enforcement, peacemaking, peace keeping, peace building and post conflict reconstruction.
“The House is disturbed that the proceeds of peace keeping operation has never featured as source of revenue in the national budget nor captured in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) presented to the National Assembly by the previous governments, hence, the need to block revenue leakages to this effect.
“The House is concerned that the mismanagement of the proceeds of peace keeping operations in Nigeria has reached a point where all the parties involved need to account for the spending.
“The House is worried that if this practice of non-inclusion of proceeds of Peace Keeping operations in the budgets and Medium Term Expenditure Framework and poor accountability of funds is not stopped, nation building will be meaningless,” he noted.
The Ad-hoc Committee is to report back within four weeks for further legislative action.
