Arewa Forum urges Buhari to sack service chiefs

A group, Arewa Professional Forum (APF), has expressed concern over the worsening state of insecurity in the country, saying it is high time President Muhammadu Buhari allowed service chiefs to quit.

The APF said the service chiefs had exhausted their ideas and capacities, and could no longer turn around the country’s security for better.

The group, in a statement, issued after its third yearly meeting in Kaduna, tasked the President to see reason with the majority of Nigerians, that the nation’s top security heads be relinquished of their positions and fresh hands and ideas injected for positive results.

The statement, signed by its National Coordinator, Dr. Ibrahim Nasir, yesterday, in Abuja, reminded the president that in democracy, the majority’s voice should prevail, adding that the recent resolution of both chambers of the National Assembly that he should replace the service chiefs, was the view of the majority of Nigerians.

He said: “The entire country expects new ideas, philosophy, and method in the fight against insurgency in the country. The president should bring in fresh hope and clear directions on how best the country will strategise to overcome the present insecurity situation.

“Our president was elected by Nigerians and the same Nigerians have spoken through their representatives in the National Assembly. The President should listen to them by dropping the service chiefs, who have since reached retirement age in the military, and appoint new ones with fresh ideas to do the job for which we elected him to do.”

The group charged the President to “immediately look for their replacement in younger, well-experienced and trained officers to lift the country out of the woods.”

Nasir said Nigeria must do away with what it called “unproductive tenure elongation in areas where fresh ideas are needed …”
 
“The current service chiefs have obviously exhausted all their ideas and have nothing left to offer.  Our region is the most unsafe place to be in Africa today, because of insecurity. Investors cannot come and businesses are packing up, due to insecurity. What special thing have the service chiefs done to deserve five years and still counting? We wonder why the President has refused to let them go. The entire country is bleeding and the President must act now to avert major food crisis in the future because farmers have since abandoned their farms for fear of kidnap  and attacks….”