President Muhammadu Buhari Orders All Military Checkpoints Dismantled

President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the immediate dismantling of all military checkpoints ‎in the country, ordering the Nigeria police to take charge of internal security henceforth.

This was part of the decision reached at the end of the meeting he had with the Chief of Defence Staff, service chiefs and the Director of Military Intelligence.

Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Defence, Ismaila Aliyu said: “The President had instructed the Chief of Defence Staff to get the Chief of Army Staff and Inspector General of Police to remove all the military men along the road across the country.

‎”[We need] an alternative arrangement, that is why the Police are also there, that is where the police are coming in to take over the internal security”, he said.

Speaking on the kennel of the meeting, he said the service chiefs briefed on the movement of Military Commander Center to Maiduguri, adding that the briefing clearly showed that the days of Boko Haram’s operation in the country were numbered.

“The Nigerian Armed Forces are very ready, we have briefed him (The President). One interesting thing about it is that we are going out much happier because he has shown us that he is still a soldier, he has updated and enriched our strategic plans.

“Second item that was discussed is the movement of the command centre to the North-East. We have briefed him on how far we have reached on that and he has given us additional assignments, and very soon the centre will go up.

“I also want to assure Nigerians that we are very enthusiastic that the issue of Boko Haram will soon be over. He has given us hope that we will see peace and security in the very near future”.

On what will be done differently, the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Defence said: “Now we have come as a united front; we have Chad, Cameroon, Benin and Niger. We have all strategised and we are coming out with a single strategy to address Boko Haram”.

Asked if the meeting discussed the change of service chiefs, Aliyu said that not come up.

‎Asked why the Inspector General of Police, the Director General State Security Service and the DG National Intelligence Agency (NIA) from the meeting he said: “this is not a national security meeting, this is a briefing meeting by the ministry of Defence on the operationalization of the Multi National Joint Task Force and the relocation of the command control centre to the North East, so it is something restricted to the ministry of Defence”.

Those in attendance were Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh; Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minimah, and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Usman Jibrin and Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola.

Sun