It is high time you fired Service Chiefs, Senate tells Buhari

The Nigerian Senate said Tuesday that it was time President Muhammadu Buhari sacked all the nation’s Service Chiefs.

This was the crux of the resolutions reached by the Senate when it discussed in plenary the slaughter of over 43 rice farmers in Borno by Boko Haram terrorists.

The upper legislative chamber declared that the service chiefs had all done their best.

According to the Senate, the primary function of government is protection of the lives and property of citizens and that with the President as the Commander-In-Chief.

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“If there is failure in the military, it means the President is not doing enough,” it said.

The Service Chiefs, according to the Senate, had apparently outlived their usefulness even as they made strong case for infusion of fresh blood into the leadership configuration of the military.

The Senate also admonished President Buhari on the imperative of his visiting Borno as Commander-in-Chief to condole with the government and people of Borno.

The Senate resolutions read: “Urge the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria to immediately initiate the transitionary process of phasing out the current over-stayed security chiefs and replacing them with new ones with new ideas and solutions;

“Urge the President  to take immediate steps to restructure, remodel and revamp the country’s entire security architecture and provide enough state-of-the-art weapons and equipment to effectively combat the belligerent power of the insurgents;

“Urge the President to immediately initiate probe into widespread allegations of corruption and leakages  within the security structure and put mechanisms in place to foster transparency and ensure all resources meant and deployed for security are actually spent on the needs on ground;

“Impress on the Federal Government to aggressively explore multilateral and bilateral options of partnership with the neighboring nations of Chad, Niger and Cameroon towards reviving and strengthening the Multinational Joint Task Force and finding a lasting solution to the insurgency to the scourge of insurgency in the Lake Chad region;

“Impress on the Federal Government as a matter of urgency, recruit at least 10,000 civilian JTF, versatile with the local terrain in Borno as Agro-Rangers under the aegis of the NCDSC to complement the efforts of the Nigerian Armed forces; and

“Direct NEMA, NEDC and Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to compensate the families of the 67 that were killed in this incident, and provide succor and psychological support to the bereaved families;
“Impress on the Federal Government to provide proper welfare for security personnel fighting in the frontlines and give prime attention to the compensation and welfare of fallen soldiers as that would boost the soldiers morale and aid their concentration;

“Finally, as a way of proffering long term solution to Nigeria’s existential security challenges, the Federal and States Government must adequately address all immediate and remote causes of insecurity in the nation.”