There are emerging indicators that the service chiefs may be thrown into fresh panic as President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday officially ordered the reengineering of Nigeria’s security apparatus. The directive was issued at the third National Security Council (NSC) meeting in the year at the State House, Abuja, presided by President Buhari as chairman.
Before the Tuesday directive by the president, there have been wide demands for the resignation or removal of the service chiefs because of the intractable security crises in the northeast perpetrated by Boko Haram, while in the northwest, the bandits hold sway, both versions of insecurity have been exported to the north central, while the herdsmen have been causing havoc in several rural communities across Nigeria without restraint. The magnitude of the insecurity crises has risen to the pedestal that Nigerians were compelled into the assumption that the service chiefs have been overwhelmed. Some others were of the view that they have failed. These views subsequently precipitated wide demand for the removal or resignation of the service chiefs; lawmakers in the two chambers of the National Assembly also joined the demand for the resignation or sack of the service chiefs.
The presidential directive for the re-engineering of the security apparatuses of Nigeria created seeming uncertainty of probable restructuring in the Nigerian Armed Forces, which may include retirements and promotions.
Meanwhile, the National Security Adviser (NSA), retired General Babagana Monguno, at a media interaction in Abuja after the NSC meeting disclosed that the council deliberated on the varieties of security crises in Nigeria.
Monguno remarked that besides security crises, the council deliberated on other social vices which include drug addiction and human trafficking. The NSA acknowledged that Nigeria’s crime status deteriorated from a transit hub to a drug production country.
The NSA, however, appealed to Nigerians to be calm, adding that President Buhari and the Service Chiefs are working hard to tackle the insecurity crises in the northwest and north central zones.
Monguno revealed that the government recently shutdown 17 meth labs in the country. He advocated a comprehensive national approach to containing the drug menace.
It was gathered that at the council meeting, heads of intelligence units unveiled their blue points for containing insecurity in the country.
Meanwhile, Nigerians await the outcome of the presidential re-engineering of the security system in the country and the result that will yield.