Defeating insurgency must start from you, not service chiefs, northern elders tell Buhari

THE Northern Elders Forum has told President Buhari that much as the change of service chiefs is a welcome development, the decision alone will not bring the needed change Nigerians against insurgency and allied security challenges.

The group noted that it would take the willingness to tackle insecurity by the Buhari himself to put an end to insurgency in the country.

The group urged the President to exert his leadership authority as the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces.

NEF’s spokesman Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed said this while featuring on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily today.

He 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.

“There are no suicide bombings now but the population of Nigerians living under Boo Haram is large, huge and unacceptable,”
NEF said this against the background of the decision taken by the president yesterday.
Buhari yielded to the clamour for the replacement of former service with new ones in the face of growing insecurity in the country.

The clamour came from different quarters of the country with many saying the service chiefs have run out of ideas.

But after much pressure from Nigerians the President on Tuesday announced the appointment of four new service chiefs.

The new service chiefs are Major-General Leo Irabor as Chief of Defence Staff; Major-General Ibrahim Attahiru as Chief of Army Staff; Rear Admiral A.Z Gambo as Chief of Naval Staff; and Air-Vice Marshal I.O Amao as Chief of Air Staff.

But the northern elders said the replacement might not be effective if the president lead the new crop of service chiefs the same way he led the former commanders.

Baba-Ahmed added that “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 ran out of steam. Their leadership did not produce the results it was intended to produce.

“But we don’t 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 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, 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.”

Baba-Ahmed also said Nigerians would know if the president made the right choices in his appointment of the new service chiefs in the next seven months.