Buhari meets service chiefs

‎President Muhammadu Buhari is currently holding his first meeting with the nation’s service chiefs at the defence house in Abuja.

The service chiefs arrived‎ at 11:55 am for the meeting, which is expected to be dominated by strategies for ending the threat of Boko Haram in the north-east.

Those in attendance were Kenneth Minimah, chief of army staff; Adesola Amosu, chief of air staff; Usman Jibrin, chief of naval staff; and Alex Badeh, chief of defence staff.

Before the meeting started, Buhari had met with the national working committee of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

While speaking with journalists after the meeting, John Oyegun, national chairman of APC, said the party reiterated its support‎ to the president.

“We just came here to facilitate with him and pledge our loyalty and determination to work with him through thick and thin, and he can always depend on the party that he used as a platform for utmost support,” he said.

“We noted the fact that expectations are extremely high and that the public expects a totally new dawn. On that score, we said ‘Look, we are with you, Mr. President. You will succeed because the entire party will be galvanised as one man behind you to ensure that days into this presidency, Nigerians do in fact see that things are changing.

“All the problems will not be solved by a switch that you flip, but what Nigerians want is to be sure that we have gotten it right and that we are on the proper part towards answering their long frustration.”

When Buhari’s meeting with the service chiefs, which lasted about four hours, ended, Usman Jibrin, chief of naval staff, said they briefed the president on the general security situation‎ of the country.

“This is the first time we are meeting with the president since his inauguration to give a general security briefing on the country, and it went well,” he said.

“Specifically on Boko Haram, with the level of success recorded, we want to maintain the tempo until they are rooted out of the country‎.”

Regarding the relocation of the military command centre to the northeast ‎, Jibrin said the armed forces was working on that. He said the process would not take time.

The meeting comes one day before the president’s scheduled trip to Chad and Niger, where he will meet leaders of the states also on Boko Haram’s activities.