BY DAYO ADESULU
The Northern Elders Forum has said that the sacking of the service chiefs and the appointment of new service chiefs was not the issue with the country’s insecurity, but Presidents Muhammadu Buhari himself.
Buhari had on Tuesday, 26 January 2021 sacked the Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin; Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ekwe Ibas; and Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar.
The new Service Chiefs are Major-General Leo Irabor, Chief of Defence Staff; Major-General I. Attahiru, Chief of Army Staff; Rear Admiral A. Z. Gambo, Chief of Naval Staff; and Air-Vice Marshal I.O Amao, Chief of Air Staff.
In its reaction to the development, Northern Elders Forum said: “The key is the president, he has to change his attitude to the defence and security of this country.
”You cannot run this country with all these security challenges and maintain the distance that he maintains with what is going on.
”You listen to the president and his spokespeople are telling you the situation is better than it was in 2015. It is a very disturbing thing when you hear this.”
According to the NEF, the appointment of new service chiefs is not enough to bring the needed change Nigerians expect to see in the country’s war against insurgency and sundry security challenges.
NEF Spokesman, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed on Wednesday said: “ Though there are no suicide bombings now the population of Nigerians living under Boko Haram is large, huge and unacceptable.”
Speaking during the Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday, Baba-Ahmed said the replacement might not be effective if the president leads the new crop of service chiefs the same way he led the former commanders.
Baba-Ahmed words: “At last, it appeared that the President has considered that it is time for him to appoint new service chiefs.
“Our hope is that he is not just responding to public opinion but he himself acknowledges the fact that all service chiefs have run out of steam. Their leadership did not produce the results it was intended to produce.
“But we don’t want the nation to be carried away. It is important that the Armed Forces have a new leadership but they have a huge task and it has to start from the president.
“We have a Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces. The president has the responsibility to lead the new service chief in a better way than he did in the past. He needs to recognise the fact that he has a role.
“He (Buhari) needs to have a closer eye on what is going on and hold the new service chiefs accountable to make sure that the changes are brought into the military in terms of conduct, professionalism, integrity, the morale of the fighting forces and change in tactics.
“If these new service chiefs are led in the same manner the president exercised the distance between him and the conflict that the military is fighting, we are going to have the same problem.”
