Only Buhari can change his service chiefs

Asked whether the service chiefs would be changed soon in order to address the security problems, Monguno said: “These are issues that only the president can address, I am just an adviser.

“It is up to Mr. President, he has the prerogative to make any change at whatever time he deems fit. Remember he is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and he is the one ultimately who will take this kind of executive decision,” he said.

On why he was unable to provide synergy among various security agencies, he said: “There are a lot of flexibilities, a lot of issues of overlapping and interlocking responsibilities.

“For the office of the national security adviser, its mandate remains the same as before. This again is a decision that only the president can streamline because as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, he may deem it necessary to allocate certain tasks and responsibilities to certain organisations even outside defence and security.”

On what assurance the government would give the Nigerian population, he said: “First, we have to go back to the drawing board, nothing is ever too late. It is regrettable that lives have been lost, a lot of chaos has arisen, but that doesn’t mean we ditched all our efforts, we are going to go back and that is why I emphasised on collective efforts; the convergence of all our efforts so that we can streamline and develop more meaningful strategies, but definitely, there will be a change.” go.

“From newspaper reports, the NSA mentioned three issues including hard drugs, proliferation of small arms and unregistered sim cards as the major causes of the security situation; I think this is just blame passing.

“I believe these are the excuses they passed to the president and he believed them. These are the most flimsy excuses, which have been made time and time again. It is a shame that at this stage we are still blaming other departments of government. For the military to be brought in, it means every other department has failed.

“The killings are too many and people are demonstrating, but he turned a deaf ear; so what he said yesterday was expected.

“He had launched operations twice in Zamfara, one ongoing in Katsina for the past two months and many others too, yet no results.

“People are tired of the existing arrangement ....... Rejig the military/security circle and give them what they require. If we can’t get it right now that is dry, we have to wait until November to make any impact,” he said.

On how to motivate the Nigerian troops fighting in many fronts, Bakhari said, “The troops can only be encouraged by most especially equipping them with the right platforms as was the case in 2014 where new equipment bought by the then government changed the situation from 35 LGAs across 3 states under Boko Haram in the North East to 1 LGA before handover in 2015.

“The second motivation is removing the service chiefs as both junior personnel and senior officers have lost confidence in the military leadership. There is nothing new any of them will bring that has not been used in the last five years.