Don’t Extend Tenure of Service Chiefs, CSO Cautions Buhari

Ahead of retirement of the Chief of Defence Staff and Chief of Air Staff, Citizen Rights Action for Peace (CRAP), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to resist the temptation of extending their tenures but rather use the opportunity to overhaul the security system for better efficiency.

The CSO in a statement signed by its executive director, Sani Nurudeen explained that extending tenures of service chiefs has neither added value to the nation’s military nor war against insurgency and other forms of insecurity.

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Consequently, the CSO argued that it was a waste of time and tax payers’ money extending tenures of persons who have not been exceptional in delivering on their responsibilities.

“The duo of Chief of Defence Staff, Major General L. E Irabor and Chief of Air Staff Isiaka Alao who have hit the retirement bar since last year have not done anything significant to be retained beyond their service years. We wish to remind Mr. President that this practice of keeping Service Chiefs beyond their retirement dates does not add value to the security architecture of the country.

“We appeal to the president and commander in Chief of the Armed forces not to allow what happened during Lt. Gen. Buratai regime to repeat itself. The security apparatus must quickly be overhauled and new blood injected into the system.

“While we note that security is not something to be politicized, care must be taken to ensure that those saddled with the task of securing the nation do not use it as avenue to compensate persons perceived to be loyal to them.

The group noted that “playing politics with security is the single reason why Boko Haram has again taken over two Local Government Areas in Borno State.”

“Intelligence is key to any meaningful security operations and as such, due diligence must be taken in ensuring that only competent persons man intelligent agencies.

Citizen Rights Action for Peace, further called on President Buhari “to appoint young, vibrant and experienced officers as service chiefs so as to give Nigeria an edge over the terrorists who have so far held the country hostage because of the cluelessness of the current security chiefs”