President Buhari Summons All Service Chiefs

President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned all the service chiefs to meet with him at the Defence House in Abuja on Tuesday as their new commander-in-chief.

Military sources say the service chiefs are likely be asked to go (retire) or they may voluntarily opt to give way to new blood following the president’s wish for them to relocate their Command and Control Centre to Maiduguri, the Maiduguri State capital and epicentre of the Boko Haram killings.

A military sources say Buhari is not happy with them:

“It is an attempt to frustrate and humiliate our chiefs before sacking them. Some of us have analysed the speech and our conclusion is (that) President Buhari did not appreciate the efforts put in place in fighting the terrorists.

“In the whole speech, he did not commend us at all but instead seemed to agree with the cynics that we have not been observing human rights in our operations and he went further to praise our counterparts in neighbouring countries who are not in the theatre of operation,” said a top military source who craved anonymity. 

“As if that was not enough, President Muhammadu Buhari said he wants our Command and Control Centre to relocate to Maiduguri; what for? We are involved in about nine operations in the country; now if the directive is carried out, then our focus will primarily be on terrorism at the expense of other criminal activities such as kidnapping, armed robbery, piracy, pipeline vandalism and others.”

Although some military watchers were expecting the president to appoint their replacements last Friday shortly after his inauguration as president, this was not to be for strategic reasons, but today’s meeting may be the last they would have with him.

According to an informed military source, President Buhari’s plan to relocate the Command and Control Centre to Maiduguri, to rev up the fight against the Boko Haran insurgency, did not receive the support of the military high command.

In his maiden speech last Friday, Buhari argued that victory over the Boko Haram would remain a mirage until the service chiefs relocate to the theatre of operation.

On the insurgency, Buhari had said: “Progress has been made in recent weeks by our security forces but victory cannot be achieved by basing the Command and Control Centre in Abuja. The Command Centre will be relocated to Maiduguri and (will) remain until Boko Haram is completely subdued.”

The speech was hailed by those at the Eagle Square, but military sources are not happy with the directive.

Day One: Buhari operates from Defence House

Rather than operate from Aso Villa as is the custom, President Muhammadu Buhari marked his first official working day from the Defence House in Abuja.

But is said to be ready to take some critical decisions by the end of this week