President Buhari Tasks New Army Chief, Others To Collaborate And End Insecurity
President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday tasked the Nigerian Armed Forces to end rising insecurity in the country and also collaborate in order to win the battle.
The President gave the charge at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Monday while receiving the new Chief of Army Staff, Major General Farouk Yahaya, who was accompanied by the Minister of Defence, Major General Bashir Magashi (retd.) and Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor.
The meeting was to formally introduce Yahaya to the President.
Newsmen report that Major General Farouk Yahaya was named as the replacement for the late COAS, Ibrahim Attahiru, who died in a plane crash in Kaduna alongside 10 others recently. The new Army Chief had visited the President to be formally introduced.
While addressing State House Correspondents after the meeting, Magashi said the President also provided new instructions on how to tackle insecurity.
Magashi said,”He (the President) told him (COAS) that there’s a lot of pressure on security and being an actor, at one point or the other, has given us a direction in which we can learn from his experiences and apply them to our modern operations and I think we have taken the advice seriously.
“The issue of synergy among the security forces was also stressed and I’m sure there will be a lot of changes as regards the security operations in this country.
“The President received us, offered some advice on how we can go about doing this operation and the entire security of the country.
“We assured him that we will do our best to bring an end to the problem of insecurity in this country.
“He’s very happy, he thanked Mr President for giving him the opportunity to serve as the Chief of Army Staff and promised that he will bring all his experiences to bear in collaboration with his colleagues; Chief of Air Staff, the Chief of Naval Staff, to be able to do this country proud.
“The President has confidence in the new set of people he has appointed. We wish them the best of luck.”
On what the Armed Forces were doing to restore peace to the North West, Magashi said the they were only assisting the police in their constitutional duties to maintain internal security.
He added that the military’s major concern is the evolving terror activities in the North East, especially the growing concern with the activities of the Islamic State West African Province.
He said: “In the North-Western part of the country, you know that the more concern we have is banditry, kidnapping, and other criminalities.
“We are taking the challenge, but you know, really, this is the constitutional responsibility of the police, we are only an aid to the police and we are giving maximum cooperation to the police in order to see an end to this banditry and insecurity in the Northwest, otherwise I think it’s quite different from the Northeast.
“In the North East, it’s Boko Haram issue and we’re up and doing to ensure that we bring an end to this Boko Haram issue, especially with this development of ISWAP.
