Service Chiefs meet in Maiduguri, seek to end insurgency
The Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin, Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai and the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar on Tuesday held a meeting in Maiduguri the Borno State Capital and received first hand briefings from top commanders of Operation Lafiya Dole.
The renew meeting in Maiduguri followed the directive last week by the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo that the Service Chiefs should relocate to Maiduguri following the resurgence of pockets of Boko Haram attacks including the abduction of three lecturers of University of Maiduguri and the deaths of some officers, soldiers and civilians that were ambushed during their return trip from oil exploration exercise in the lake Chad Basin.
The service chiefs and other top military commanders arrived Maiduguri on Tuesday morning and went into the meeting at the headquarters of Military Command and Control Centre.
According to the military procedure, the Chiefs received a briefing from Theatre Commander and strategized on how to curb the increasing Boko Haram attacks in the northeast and bring the insurgency to an end.
Maiduguri area had witnessed in recent time increased attacks, apart from last week’s ambush and abduction of a team of geologists from the University of Maiduguri, about 90 separate or multiple suicide attacks had occurred in and around Maiduguri in the past four months.
Commenting on the steps taken so far to end the insurgency yesterday , a security expert, Maxwell Yakubu said that the country need to adopt other strategies other than naked force to lure the remnants of the Boko Haram to abandon the fight.
He said that messages contained in a recent video post by Boko Haram of the lecturers of the University of Maiduguri suggested that the leader of Boko Haram may accept dialogue at this point in time.
