There is no wonder that with swearing in of a new president the changes in the leadership of Nigerian Armed Forces will come. But as with the appointment of new ministers President Muhammadu Buhari was not in a hurry in replacing services chiefs. So what are the reasons of such development? Newly appointed chiefs It should be noted that Buhari and his ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), have consistently criticized the failure of the army to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency under the watch of the previous government. During the electoral campaign former Head of State had promised personally lead fight in the battle with insecurity. Since taking the office on May 29 Buhari showed some level of commitment in dealing with issues of security. In his first decision as the commander-in- chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces the president ordered relocation of military command centre to Maiduguri , the epicenter of Boko Haram insurgency. During the first 30 days in office President Buhari was seeking international support for stopping the deadly menace of the Islamist militants. He visited Chad and Niger and attended the G7 summit. However, since Nigeria has changed its leader Boko Haram had renewed attacks and no less than 500 innocent people have been killed by suicide bombers and gunmen in some states in the Northern part of the country. A former military officer, who asked not to be named, who spoke on the matter said: “ The only surprise about the appointment of the new service chiefs is that it came later than expected. We all know that General Buhari was not happy with the way and manner the terrorists have been killing and maiming the people and what people were expecting was the immediate sack of the service chiefs on the day he was inaugurated, but that did not happen until today (yesterday). Buhari may have been biding his time in doing so.” The most interesting fact is that the service chiefs, too, had been pending the firing. A personal assistant to one of them had said three weeks ago that his boss was ready to go but was waiting for Buhari to act. He had said: “ My principal and other service chiefs know that President Buhari will sack them but they are only waiting for him to do so in order to prevent a situation where they could be accused of walking out on him. We all know what he said about them during the campaign. “He came and ordered them to relocate to Borno State. Have you ever heard the military top hierarchy relocating to the heart of the battle? Maybe this man wanted to humiliate them. Some of us are even thinking they would submit their papers but we were told it is not done that way.”
Sources: Leadership, Naij.com news

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