Farmers’ killings: CSOs calls for immediate sack of service chiefs

*Says, they lack strategy to fight insecurity

Doosuur Iwambe, Abuja

Coalition of Civil Society for Peace and Good Governance in Africa, (COSPAGA), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately sack of service chiefs saying, they all lack the strategy to fight insecurity in the country.

Reacting to the recent killings of at least 43 farmers by the Boko Haram on Saturday in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, COSPAGA urged the president to as a matter national emergency, respect the wishes of Nigerian people by sacking the service chiefs.

In a statement jointly signed by its National Cordinator, Dr Christopher Yakubu, National Secretary, Ibrahim Funtua and Director of programme, (Mrs) Lola Babalola, the group also called for the immediate sack of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu over comment credited to him to the effect that service chiefs would remain in office as long as the president is satisfied with them.

While stressing that the president and the service chiefs are paid and funded from Nigerian task payers’ money and must respect the wishes of Nigeria, the group said, his statement was not only reckless but also irresponsible as well as unprofessional of a journalist he claimed to be.

COSPAGA claimed that Shehu was always portraying the president and his administration in bad light with his unprofessional handling of things associated with his office insisting that it was time for the president to show him the way out.

It said that contrary to Shehu’s ignorance, the service chiefs were not employees of the president but Nigerians whose taxes, it said, were being used to pay them.

“We received with rude and outright shock the irresponsible statement credited to Mallam Garba Shehu, President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman on a national TV where he stated that the service Chiefs will remain in office as long as Buhari is satisfied with them.

“Nothing can be more irresponsible, reckless, insensitive, unprofessional as such a statement.

“We wonder if Garba Shehu ever went to any image managing school in his life. For us, we think Garba Shehu is a liability to Buhari’s government and is largely responsible for putting this government in a bad light.

“We appeal to the President to sack and replace him with a more competent and experienced Nigerian’’, the group stated.

While emphasizing the need to sack all the service chiefs, the group added that appointing new service chiefs will reflects federal character as well as usher in a new hope to the nation.

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‘’While we appreciate the fact that sacking the service chiefs may not automatically end the war against insurgence and insecurity in Nigeria, we strongly believe that appointment of new service chiefs that reflects federal character will usher in hope to the nation and will set in template total turnaround for our national security.”

‘’The new officers will be coming in with new zeal, and ideas that may change the game, Nigeria will work closely through information sharing with them’’, it added.