Insurgency, oil theft top agenda as Buhari meets Service Chiefs

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday summoned Service Chiefs to a security meeting at the Defence House, Abuja.
A source told Freedom Online learned that “the meeting borders on how to tackle insurgency, especially in the North-East”.
Present were Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh; Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Kenneth T. J. Minimah; Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal A. N. Amosun; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral U. O. Jibrin and Inspector General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase.
All the Service Chiefs “arrived almost at the same time and immediately, President Buhari joined them for the meeting,” said the source.
He also disclosed that strategies on how to check oil theft were discussed extensively.
“The President wants to get first-hand information from the Service Chiefs before travelling to Chad and Niger to discuss the country’s security situation and how to reduce insurgency drastically. He (Buhari) told the Service Chiefs that if the fundamentals are not removed, insurgency and oil theft may fester for a long time. You know vandalism is part of the crisis affecting power generation, distribution and transmission in the country”.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Jubrin said: “Since he was inaugurated as the President and Commander in Chief, this is the first time that we are formally meeting him to give a general security briefing of the country and that went very well.’’
He said the military would like to maintain the level of successes recorded against Boko Haram terrorists and sustain it until they are defeated.
He said the military would go back and work on the command centre, following the President’s directive that it had to relocate to Maiduguri.
He added that the military would report back to the President. “This won’t take too long and we must come back as quickly as possible’’, he said.
On the resurgence of the terrorists, Jubrin urged Nigerians to continue to support the security operatives in the battle against Boko Haram.
“The step is for all Nigerians to continue to support us and provide us with the needed intelligence as to the human beings, their movements.
“Any suspicious movement can be reported to the police and, of course, the police will make that available to us.
“As we continue to put pressure on them in the Sambisa area, they will try to run away from there and then create bombs through Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) ’’, he said.