Replacement of Service Chiefs On The Table- Presidency
By Tosin Olatokunbo
President Muhammadu Buhari is under both international and local pressure to sack his service chiefs.
A plan to replace to replace the military chiefs is in the offing, according to Aso Villa, presidency sources.
The pressure become more intense following discovery by the presidency that the top security echelon in the country have been deceiving the president that Boko haram insurgents have been contained, sources in the Presidency said.
“ The chief of defence staff and others have received querries from the National Security Adviser, NSA over the increasing attacks of boko haram,” a source told the magazine on Tuesday.
Accordingly, the president is weighing many options , including and not limited to “replacing the service chiefs with new ones. After all they are already due for retirement over two years ago,” the official said.
On Tuesday, President Buhari expressed his surprise at the increasing spate of attacks, despite claim by the military that boko haram ‘has been degraded’.
“I was taken aback by what is happening in the North West and other parts of the country.
During our campaigns, we knew about the Boko Haram.
What is coming now is surprising,” President Buhari stated in a statement by Femi Adesina his spokesman.
The military has maintained that it was in the last phase of defeating the terrorists, that boko haram is no longer capable of ochestrating serious attacks.
So far, that has turned out untrue.
Just yesterday, the group bombed a mosque in Maiduguri, Borno state’s capital.
Penultimate week, Boko haram killed the chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Adamawa state Lawan Andimi.
The group, also few days ago, murdered a 400 level student of the University of Maiduguri, Ropvil Daciya Dalep, in the spate of attacks that have increased since the beginning of the year.
As a result of the increasing murderous act of the group, international and local pressure have mounted on the president to step up counter measures against the insurgents.
For instance, the European Union, last week, said the Buhari adiminstration is struggling to contain the insurgents, and therefore, should seek external help.
Also, during its plenary on Tuesday, the Nigerian Senate, warned that the state of insecurity across the country has become worrisome.
The upper chamber of the Nigerian legislature, expressed concern that insecurity in the country had deteriorated, warning the federal government to deploy more resources to combat insecurity across the country.
The magazine, however learnt that top security officials in the country may have consistently lied to the president on the state of war against Boko haram in the north east.
Therefore recent development has proved wrong, the notion by the army that the group is no longer a threat, Defence analysts said.
The president is not taking the matter lightly and has directed that investigations be conducted, to find out the truth, it was learnt.
Sources in the presidency said, the president may have finally come to the reality that the current service chiefs have outlived their time and needed to be changed.
For instance, the chief of defence staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin; chief of army staff, Turkur Burutai, chief of Naval staff Vice Admiral Ibok Etete-Ibas and the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), AVM Sadique Abubakar.
“All their course mates at the Nigerian Defence Academy, NDA have been forcefully retired. In fact some of their juniors have retired from the military. It still beats the imaginations of many of us that they have not been aske to go,” a top military sources said in confidence.
But hope seems to be in the horison, for those that want the present crop of military top brass to go.
The “president is considering the matter seriously,” a presidency official said on Tuesday.
